Game Theory - Ash Ketchum SUCKS At Pokémon

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Ash Ketchum is actually not that smart and hasn’t really proven himself at all. Which makes me wonder… if the Gym Leaders hadn’t gone easy on him COULD Ash have actually beaten the Pokemon League? Today, we’re going to finally find out!

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We all know this. How stupid is he? Today, we're going to finally find out. Hello internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the show that is constantly overthinking everything about Ash Ketchum. From his true age to who he's going to marry, heck, my first ever episode of Game Theory was calculating the level of Ash's Pikachu. But there is one part of Ash's life that has always bothered me.

During his first time in the Pokemon League, his Charazard famously doesn't obey him, causing him to forfeit the match. Now, at first, this just feels like plot convenience. Ash has all eight badges, and anyone who has played the games knows that once you have all eight badges, all Pokemon, regardless of level, should obey you. It doesn't matter how strong this guy is,

he should have been listening to Ash, and if he had, Ash almost certainly would have won the league, right? Well, maybe not. See, if you watched all the episodes like I did, you'll have noticed that Ash didn't actually win all eight badges. In reality, he only won three. The Thunder badge, the Soul badge and the Volcano badge. The rest basically were given to him for just being a good dude. Brock gave him the badge for surrendering. Misty's sisters and Erica gave him the badge for saving the gym. Sabrina laughed at his haunter and the Earth badge, probably did win the battle. It was against Team Rocket, not the real gym leader.

And even then, he only got it because it fell out of the sky as they were blasting off again. Basically, Ash hasn't proven squat. Which begs the question, if these gym leaders hadn't gone easy on him and his Charazard's respect had been earned, could Ash have actually beaten all of the gyms and the Pokemon League? I wanted to find out, and a few years ago, I actually streamed myself playing a prototype version of this challenge. The problem is, I'm not the best Pokemon player. I love the games, absolutely, if you couldn't tell from the posters and the weird amount of Evie-plushies I have. But just because I love it, that doesn't immediately make me good at them.

I did beat the game in the end, but I was just kind of eyeballing stuff. If I wanted to find out the answers for real, I needed to make this a proper Pokemon challenge with actual professional Pokemon players. So I decided to gather together three of the biggest Pokemon nerds I know to put Ash's team to the test. So say hi to our brave test subjects. I mean Pokemon trainers, Adef, Geigen J and Jacob Alpha-Rad. Like any good experiment, we first have to establish some basic parameters. The goal here is to recreate Ash's experience as much as is physically possible within the bounds of a 30-year-old game. And honestly, I think we got pretty close. We're going to be following

Ash as he battles through the eight gym leaders and the Elite Four of the Kanter region. During each battle, we'll be using the Indigo League rules that Ash uses in the anime. They can only use as many Pokemon as the gym leader themselves uses. They can swap out Pokemon if they wish, they can't use items and there are no revives. Each player is only going to have access to whatever Pokemon Ash had when he went up against that gym leader in the anime. And we'll be catching, releasing and evolving them like he does in the anime. Those Pokemon will be level capped at the highest level of the gym leader's Pokemon because I didn't want any of our players to simply get around the challenge by XP grinding on Route 2. Like I did. And to top it all of

I then went back through the anime and made notes of each Pokemon's move set, so the players will have those same moves available. But here's where things get interesting, because what's an experiment without a variable? For this, I've given each player a specific rule about which Pokemon they can use. In classic Kigenjay style, he is free to use whichever Pokemon Ash had at the time of the gym battle. Doesn't matter what he did or didn't use in the anime, it's just about planning and skill. Jacob, on the other hand, needs to use Pikachu each time, but he can fill the other slots however he wants. I mean, makes sense, right? Pikachu is the goat, only makes sense that Ash would want him there at all times.

Finally, there's Adef who specifically asked me for the hardest rule set. So he must use Ash's exact team makeup from the anime. If there's a spare slot because the gym leader uses more Pokemon, he is free to fill that however he wishes. There may be one or two other details, but I'll explain them as we go. So without further ado, it is time to prepare your poker balls, loyal theorists, because we're about to see if Ash's team could really stand up to the canto gauntlet. Ready team? Get set. Go! We start the game like normal in Palatown.

Ash is home, but instead of picking one of the iconic three Kanto starters, we were late, and we get our beloved Pikachu. Its name is Pikachu. Oh, it's so cute, it's the best of all! Oh, hi, Pikachu! Pika! Yeah! We catch a catapy. Caterpies, you're mine.

Then a Pigeotto. Yes! And we quickly evolve catapy twice all the way into a Butterfree, all without leaving Viridian Forest. With that, we have everything we need for our first gym battle, Brock. And immediately things get hard. Rock hard.

Oh, calm down. Brock is a rock-type trainer, but all of his Pokemon, Geodood, and Onyx, are also ground types, making him one of the hardest gym leaders to beat during a normal play-through if you pick the fire type, Charmander, which is weak to both of those types. Or if you're us, you picked Pikachu, the electric type and all electric moves do zero damage against ground types. This makes it really difficult for Ash to win. And in the anime, that's exactly what happens. He loses the first time and gets extremely lucky the second time by setting off the sprinklers. And the same thing held true for our competitors, or at least two of them.

Both Keegan and Jacob struggled here. Kegan chose Butterfree and Pigeot. except for one time where he gave Pikachu a go and quickly regretted it, and Jacob had to use Pikachu so he chose Pigeotto as his second Pokemon. Yeah, one, like, it has to connect eventually, right? You're kidding. You're kidding. How is it still landing these attacks? Yeah. This is not looking pretty right now.

Two in a row? Come on, man. I need this to miss. I need a tackle to start missing. What was the deal here, Keegan? Why was this battle in particular so challenging? This fight against Brock is so hard because all three of Asha's current Pokemon have a terrible matchup into the rock and ground types of this gym. Defensively, both Pigeoto and Butterfree are weak against Rock-type attacks. This makes it hard enough, but it gets even worse when you realize that offensively,

none of our Pokemon have any attacks that are good against Brock. To start, Pikachu's Thunderbolt is completely ineffective against ground types, meaning it can't hit either of Brock's Pokemon. This leaves our team with only normal and flying type attacks, both of which barely deal any damage against Brock, both due to the poor type matchup and Brock's Pokemon having a really high physical defense. Overall, this combination is deadly as we struggle to deal damage while also not being able to tank many hits.

If we could use Asher's Squirtle or Bulbassol here, this would be a very different story. Or if we could just break the water sprinklers like Ash did in the anime, that would also make things much simpler. However, only being able to use these three Pokemon here makes this fight such a tough early game hurdle. I should also mention, because this is Ash's Pikachu, we actually gave him the stats of partner Pikachu from Let's Go

to make him a little more viable, especially in the late game. And even then, at this level, it was a real struggle to get through. It basically came down to lucky R&G, taking Kegan five attempts and taking Jacob six. Oh my God, that's it. That's it. Brock is done. So with extreme perseverance, Ash can technically beat Brock.

Then Adeph gave it a go. He uses the same build as Jacob because that's what Ash uses in the anime. And at first, I thought he'd go the same way as everyone else. He lost his first battle and so it looked like another painful R&G slog was up ahead. Adaf was smart. They used this first fight to test out what strategies worked and what did. in this situation. Our goal is probably just to sand attack a bunch and then pray and then we just quick attack and Welcome to our new home and so on the second try ADF also powered through

Was it skill? Was it luck? Who's to say at this point? But that's our first gym down even if it was a super close call On to the next one, Cerulean city between pewter and cerulean ash doesn't actually pick up any new Pokemon, so once again, Pikachu, Pigeoto, and Butterfrey are the stars of the show. Now, you think this would be an easy win, Ash should just sweep this battle because of Pikachu. And to be fair, both Kigin and Jacob do exactly that. Pikachu, use Thunderbolt. Ooh, very simple. I think I could have just clicked Thunderbolt on Pikachu twice and won Misty.

I'd actually know, I don't think this is a challenge at all. However, in the anime, Pikachu actually refused to fight Misty. All right then, Pikachu, I choose you. Pikachu, what are you doing? Saying you don't want to battle with Misty? So Adeth, who has to use the same Pokemon as Ash, is at a disadvantage. Ash doesn't use Pikachu on Misty? Why ever not? Pikachu refused to battle? Well, he better grow up because he's gonna be needed.

Fortunately, despite it being a very close call, thanks to Butterfrey's bad move set and an unlucky critical hit, Adef did manage to beat Misty in one attempt. Alright, we're good. Ash has two bad. No Pikachu required and that one was first try, baby. I'm starting to worry that Adiff might be too good at this. Either that or these gyms weren't always this easy. Maybe that's why they just gave Ash the badge. It was basically as good as over as he walked through the door.

But okay, that means we're on to the Thunderbad in Vermillion City. But before we get there, we have to catch a couple of Pokemon. First, there's a Bulbosaur. Pokemon! Then Charmander. Come on Charmander, welcome to the group. Up next to Squirtle. Would you like to come along with us, Squirtle?

Squirtle. Finally, Ash gets a crabby. Good try, crabby, but not good enough. So a ton of new Pokemon in one go, and now we finally have some real diversity on this team. Not that he intended it to be that way, but you know, silver linings and all that. At least now they won't get destroyed by a local ground type that looks at them funny. That being said, none of them are great for an electric type gym. In the show, Ash just uses his overpowered Pikachu to power through.

And so if Ash could win this match, surely that. That would mean our competitors will probably win their match as well. And yeah, they do. Since Ash only used Pikachu in this fight, most of our competitors basically had free reign to use whoever they wanted. And weirdly, they all used the same team. Pikachu, Bulbosaur, and Charamanda. Pikachu is an electric type, so is resistant there.

Bulbassar, being a grass type, is also resistant to electricity. And Charmander, well, it turns out if you have a Charmanda with Flamethrower, like Ash does this early in the game, it kind of breaks the whole system. All right, nice. Beautiful. Easy peasy, baby. That was much easier than the Brock fight, that's for sure. You know what? I think this challenge is going to go smooth sailing from here on out. Actually, no, no, no, I think the midgame is going to be easy.

I think the late game is where things will get hard again. Well, let's see if you're right about that, Jacob. This is where things start to get a little confusing. In the show, Ash then goes on to get the Marsh badge from Sabrina. But in the games, you're actually pushed towards Erica next with the level cap. If you jump right to Sabrina, we would have to train our Pokemon to the level 43 level cap and then go back and just sweep Erica's poor level 2019, which doesn't feel right.

So we're going to change the order here just for the sake of logic. I mean, Ash did get completely bodied the first time he went up against Sabrina, so I think going to Erica first makes sense. Technically, Ash also gains Eradicate at this point. Well, that's all there is to it. Radicate is your new Pokemon. But then he immediately regrets it because, duh. So he doesn't have it for any future battles,

although not that he keeps the Butterfree around for long either. Yep, it's time for some childhood trauma. Goodbye Butterfree. Bye bye, bye! Good luck to both of you! And so our trainers followed suit. And you know what time it is, everybody. Everyone say bye-bye to Butterfree.

It's what has to happen, unfortunately. It's canon. It's how the journey has to go. 07's Butterfree, you were a real one. Go be with your people. Ignore this second Butterfree. I'll release this one as well. That means our competitors, unfortunately.

unfortunately have one less Pokemon to choose from in their next battle. But that's quickly made up for with the addition of Primate. Primeape is mine! Which happened to be caught during the infamous Jelly Donut episode. These donuts are great. Jelly filled are my favorite. Nothing beats a jelly filled donut. Maybe I should have these guys eating jelly donuts just for accuracy.

But now it's time for Erika and for once, Ash used his type advantage to his... Advantage. He uses Charmander and so everyone else followed suit and just destroy. Well, turns out Charamander just solos there we brought a full team That was just for cosmetics Charmander that is a he's just a unit get absolutely cooked check plus after this we get haunted technically ash never really catches Haunter he just kind of asks Haunter to come along and help fight Sabrina you help me defeat her badge is as good as mine But we're going to counter anyway. It's also worth noting that Haunter has a really bad Mose set in the show the only ghost type attack he has is late

Yeah, not the best for this battle, but regardless, people actually did quite well against Sabrina, just for very different reasons. Kegan used a mix of Haunter, Pikachu and Charmander, and with a lucky critical hit, managed to take the win. Adiff came in with Pigeoto and Charmander with a tasteful finale from Pikachu. I used Pikachu. I'm Ash Getchum. My mom is dating Mr. Mime, and I don't have any problem with that.

I'm never going to think about it and my therapist doesn't have to know. Which left Jacob, who decided to rely almost solely. on primate? I'm gonna lead with primate and just click thrash and see what happens. I mean, that's a choice. Isn't he super weak against psychic types? So I come from a Nuzlock background, right? So you have to know how to exploit every single trainer

because you're not always gonna be granted the same Pokemon. And the thing that's most notable about Sabrina's team is obviously they're very fast, they hit very hard specially. But a Pokemon like Al-Qazam is very frail physically. It has 135 special attack, 120 speed, 95 special defense. Like, it's very good in that regard, but this is a very min-max Pokemon. I mean, the whole line is. That pales in comparison to see this 55 HP, 50 attack, 45 attack.

And that brings us to Primeape, which I know isn't like the best answer into Sabrina on paper. But we are going to outspeed nearly everything she has outside of the Al-A-Kazam. And we are going to hit it with this 105 attack stats. So suddenly none of our other stats, matter that much if we are just hitting things hard with primate. And the other fun fact is that I'm actually doing a second layer of technology here with primate, whereas I know when I go up to that Al-Qazam, I'm going to be dead in one psychic. Like, it just is what it is, realistically. But how the AI works is that, to put it short, when it sees a super effective move, especially one that can

kill, it's going to click that one. And Sabrina's Al-Qazam can either click FutureSight or Psychic. and of course future site delays it a few turns, but it technically does more damage. And the AI doesn't really think about what kills now. It just thinks about what kills. So if the Alka Zam attacks me, it's most likely going to click FutureSight, and that just opens the door for PrimeApe to attack it again.

It doesn't look like it would work, but once you kind of look under the hood, you can see why this works. There is a timeline where this thrash just one-shots it, right? Yes. And then we just keep clicking thrash. Primate did not solo, unfortunately, but it got pretty damn close. You know what, Pikachu finished the job?

I did not know Primate had that dog in them. Fortunately for Jacob, though, this did work. I almost feel bad that you now have to get rid of it. What? Sorry, that's the rules. He's got to go away and become a fighting world champion after all. After fighting Sabrina, I am now instructed to release Primate. And like, dude, what a heroic way out.

He demolished Sabrina. Nearly he soloed it. Haunter also leaves, but I'm not like too. upset about that one. He was just chilling, you know, he was just present. Sometimes that's all you can ask for. In later seasons of the show, Pikachu basically just becomes set dressing. But anyway, after those goodbyes, we grab Muck. Then we head over to Fuchsia City to battle with Koga, the poison-type gym leader. Higan and Al-Farad both managed to get through this battle pretty easily.

But his wheezing is completely hard-cannered by Muck. So two body slams, finish it off, and that's Koga done. After suffering through that first Brock fight, my hacks luck has been so good. Things have just not gotten to attack, and it's been beautiful. One more flamethrer, and that's it. But oh, poor Adef gets caught up in the classic cycle of minimized with muck. He loses on his first attempt, but locks in for the second run. That is a check plus on Koga, baby, we are so back. Koga, I hate you so much.

I hate you so much. That is a Pikachu solo. Easy, I was never worried. So far, whatever way you slice it, Ash's team is managing to keep up with these gym leaders. Even with his poor choice in Pokemon, these battles, are still possible. But now we're into the late game gyms. The late game is where things will get hard again. Who cares about that? Because this is the moment everyone's been waiting for.

Ash is finally going to catch 30 Toros. On top of catching all of those Toros, we also get to evolve Charmanda, not once, but twice. It's evolving. Yeah! Jack, Char Charm! Yep, finally, Ash evolved a Pokemon. He is almost 30 levels above what he should be at this point. In the anime, the anime, they actually say that Charazard evolved too soon, which is why he's so much shorter than other Charazard.

But in reality, he was clearly over-leveled. Maybe another reason why Charazard didn't want to listen. But better late than never. Our Volcano Badge, because Ash just loves using the same typing against each other for some reason, which puts Adep in a bit of a spot. Fortunately, Ash has some wits about him, and in the initial fight against Blaine, he uses Pikachu, but more importantly, Squirtle, which Adeph uses. to wipe out a big chunk of Blaine's team.

99% of Thunder users stop clicking it just before it hits big. Check plus. Kegan also relied on Squirtle as well as crabby to take down most of the team. But despite having complete freedom, decided to hold true and see it out with Charazard. All right, nice. Well done Charazard.

Just like the anime, Charazard defeat Blaine, giving us badge number seven. G.G Blaine. But then there's Jacob, who brings out perhaps one of the most advanced battle techniques ever. I am going to save because I'm kind of going silly mode with this team, and I don't know if it is the correct play. Like, absolutely there are better teams to do.

I think Charzar should come here to, like, at least resist things. I think just bringing the three Toros. I would bring four Toros if I could. That's right. Jacob went full Toros. And while I thought about getting him back in here to explain why he did that, well, just watch. Oh, my God, that's...

Oh, he intimidates me. All right, well, I'm just clicking Fissure. Well, that works. Six fissures, four hits, by the way. And that's Blaine! Fun fact, Ash doesn't actually ever use Toros until he gets to the Orange Island final. Clearly, he was missing a trick there. And I think this may become a bit of a pattern going forward.

And with that, we're on to the last gym battle of the game. We don't catch or evolve any Pokemon in preparation either. Yep, we're taking Squirtle and Bulbosaur all the way to the final gym leader, because Ash does not care. does not care. I mean, half the time he's handed a badge anyway, so why would he care? Well, we do care. And unlike Ash, we're actually going to fight the real Giovanni. Adif has to use Squirtle, Bobasaur, and Pigeoto, since that's what Ash uses, which actually works to his advantage. While in the anime, he fights Team Rocket, who aren't using the usual ground

type Pokemon, Giovanni has two Pokemon with a four times weakness to water and grass, and all the others are at least two times weak to them. So Bulborsaw and Squirtle are really solid picks here. Easy peasy. That's eight badges, baby. Ash Ketchum has gotten all eight Kanto badges. This is huge. It's unsurprising, therefore, that Kegan took a similar tactic using Bulbuss or Squirtle, Charazard, Toros, and Pigioto. Nice. Job done. The eighth and final legitimate badge for Ash Ketchum. I never thought I'd see the day. And now, you'll know what time it is. It's Toros time. Well, it looks like I'm bringing three Toros. You already know the vibes. You know what it is.

Although, turns out he only needs. needed one, Toros. I guess he was wrong about the late game being that hard after all. I don't know what to say. Toros won. Kind of goaded though. I legitimately thought Giovanni was gonna be like impossible. I didn't think we had anything for it and uh Fisher. That's our Get Out Jail free card. And with that, Ash has all eight badges. It is time to the Pokemon League. But not before he gets one final evolution. Crabby into Kingler.

It got Crabby evolved. It looks like the intensity of the battle has crossed Crabble Having to evolve into King! Yes, I know that technically he evolves during one of the first fights of the Pokemon League, but the games don't really let us do that and he wins because it evolves. So it feels like this is just the best way to handle it. Plus, we're having to bend the rules a bit anyway, as the anime doesn't actually have an elite four. I understand why they wouldn't love that format.

The tournament style gives Ash plenty of cool plot opportunities with new characters. Plus, it stops him from becoming a Pokemon master, allowing the series to go on for another 20 years. Ash only has about eight different Pokemon at this point, but the Elite 4 is varied. So they have to strategize and diversify if they're going to succeed. While Ash uses most of his Pokemon except for Toros during the league, he obviously has a fondness for Bulborsaw, Squirtle Podioto and Pikachu. So to make the challenge more challenging, as he requested, ADF used those, while also filtering around the lesser used Pokemon like Muck, Kingler and Charazard.

Whereas both Kegan and Jacob decided to just completely replace all of the over-eastern, over-leveled but unevolved Pokemon like Bulbosaur and Squirtle for Toros and Charazard pretty consistently. And while this is a smart strategic decision, I think Jacob wished he'd done it differently. I'm gonna be heavily relying on the fissure. Honestly, I should have just brought five Torroses. What was I thinking? In fact, Jacob pretty much soloed the entire Elite 4 with just Toros. Now we click Fissure. You... You're kidding!

Why? How is Taurus once so goaded? How does he do it? I did not think Pikachu was gonna... Why doesn't Ash just do this? You don't need other moves. Just spam Fisher and Pika Fisier and we got it. Yeah, is he stupid? Is Ash just stupid or like what is it?

Why did it take him seven generations? I feel like this game's easy. Sadly, that strategy would not last forever. Even though he does get one Fischer off on. Dragon Air, Lance has a bunch of flying-type Pokemon that are just simply immune to ground-type moves like Fischer. Pikachu also goes down during the fight, forcing Jacob to swap in some other party members,

but he does manage to create. claim the victory. That fight did get a little scary. I threw Pikachu around. I fissured a bit too much. What can you do? But there is still one more fight to go, the champion. Our rival, Gary. This is the first and only 6v6 fight. So, you guessed it, Al-Frant adds yet another Toros to his team. And now we bring in another Toros. Could we possibly lose now? I don't think so. Honestly, I don't think so. The champion is a 6-6 battle, which means we get the bonus bull, which is perhaps the best reward any game could ever provide you with. This fight ends up being pretty easy.

Taurus 1 unfortunately goes down, but then passes the torch to Taurus 2, who just sweeps Gary. Uh, okay, so now what? Blastoys? Well, this is Pikachu's battle, more so than anybody else's. If he kills Taurus, he kills Taurus. If I kill with... Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to

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Gigan also had a pretty straightforward run using basically the same team as Jacob, just with a little less fish up reliance. So four of her Pokemon are water types, meaning basically my plan is for Pikachu to go brr All right. Loprus goes down and that is Lorelei done. And the poison finishes it off. All right, that's Bruno done. All right.

Next up is Agatha. Agatha's probably the most scary of the elite for me. All right. Please do something. Oh, that's terrible. Oh my God. Seriously? Hit these attacks.

All right. One it is. Critical hit. The Ash Ketchum plot armor is back in full swing. All right, that was kind of close. But yeah, that's Agatha done. Gigi. All right.

Next up is Lance. I'd say on paper his team is stronger than Agatha's, but I think we have a better match up here than we did in the last fight. So, Lance is going to heal, unfortunately, but at least Pikachu can land another Thunderbolt. Okay, I just need Kingler to live a hyperbeam. Please, Kingler, live this. All right, easily. What was I worried for?

And that was a lot close than I thought it was going to be, but that's Lance dealt with. And for the final fight, he adds Bulborsaw in, who comes in clutch against Rydon, and even does some pretty good damage against Al-Qazam. And ultimately, he also comes out victorious. Down goes Gary. Ash truly is a Pokemon champion. time to be alive. Honestly, Gary, my guy, that wasn't even close. But then there was Adef. Oh, poor Adeph. Thanks to Asht's insistence on using unevolved Pokemon like squirt on

Bulbosaur, Adeph ended up in a pretty rough spot. Lorelei went down easily enough thanks to Pikachu, but both Bruno and Agatha gave him a run for his money. That's a crit. You can stop at any time. Brother. Goodness. Good wake up. Okay. I just got really unlucky. A lot of crits. Now, a lot of the crits were from Crosschop, from Machamp, and Crosschop has a high crit rate, so it's not, like, completely unforeseeable.

But I still got pretty unlucky on my first attempt, and there were a lot of crits against me. On Agatha, though, the story is a little different. I have a bit of a history with this trainer. I have been unlucky on this fight many times on my own channel, over on the AdF channel, in challenge runs like this one, where I try to see if other trainers

could make it through to Victory Road or to the Elite 4. Agatha is pretty much always a nightmare. Her team is really solid. I mean, Gengar is incredibly good. And if that hauntor can get you asleep, first of all, its speed stat is really high, but also Dream Eater is just an incredibly powerful move. And it sort of kicks you while you're down when you're asleep.

So you can quickly get into a bad situation against Agatha. And candidly, I don't think Ash matches up very positively against her team anyway. But in the end, you were fine. Both times you were able to look. Lock in and with a little bit of luck and some help from Charazard, he managed to take them down. I really wanted to not use Charzard until I absolutely had to. And this is winnable without Zard, but it is really annoying. So, whatever.

And it won shots. Beautiful. Well, I didn't want to use Charzard, but it is a check plus and we are moving on. And from this point on, Adiv had a much easier time. Yeah, nice. Beautiful. That was way easier. That's a check plus.

Agatha remains the most threatening. And we're on to the champ, our rival, Gary Oak. Ash Ketchum is champion of the Kanto region, baby. It's just that easy. And just like that, all three trainers defeated the elite four and became the champion of the Kanto region. We did it. So, yeah, is Ash just stupid or something? Or, look, if I had the sprinklers in Brock, this would have been the easiest run ever. And the truth is, he's not wrong to be asking that. No matter what way you slice it, Ash has everything in his tool belt to beat all the gyms and the league fair and square. Even with his bad type matchups and uninvolved Pokemon, it is perfectly possible. This stupidity definitely makes it tougher, as Adolf saw first hand, but it is doable.

Ash shouldn't have taken the handouts. He should have earned all of his badges fair and square, and that way Charzard would have maybe listened to him and he wouldn't have had to wait 20 years to become a champion. Although Ash's stupidity doesn't just stop at type matchups. One thing we've proved in our Pikachu's level video is that Ash doesn't actually train enough. Sure, he goes on a bunch of adventures, but his Pokemon aren't really leveling up all that much. We followed basic challenge rules here where the Pokemon matches the level of the leader's strongest Pokemon, but in reality, Ash doesn't get his Pokemon to those levels at all.

Heck, Pikachu is only around level 30 by the time he gets to the league. And Pikachu gets more battle time than any other of his Pokemon in the first region. So while it's technically possible for Ash to win, once again, his own stupidity and lack of dedication is the real reason he could never have won. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.