Knowing how to recruit Pokémon in Pokémon Champions is one of the most important things you need to understand. If you can’t recruit Pokémon for your team, then how else are you going to reach the rank of Champion? Also, if you’re feeling you’re not the right match for a certain one, you can learn how to return Pokémon too.
On this page:
How to recruit Pokémon in Pokémon Champions
You can recruit Pokémon from the rosters presented by Kitt at Roster Ranch in Pokémon Champions.
The roster is a list of 10 Pokémon that you can choose to recruit from for Victory Points (VP). The roster refreshes every 22 hours in real-world time, but you can refresh it before this by spending more VP or Quick Coupons.
The 10 Pokémon within the roster are selected randomly from an overall pool of Pokémon that are available for a limited period of time. After the current time period is up, the roster pool will change again – meaning different Pokémon will become available. So, this does mean that you’ll need to wait or use Pokémon Home to get your favourite Pokémon on your team.
This also means that you can look at the roster for free once per real world day.
However, if you’ve got Pokémon waiting for you in Pokémon Home, then you can always use Roster Ranch to bring them into your Champions team. Just be warned that their stats can be altered to suit this game’s mechanics.
Step One – Look at the Roster
Select ‘Recruit’ from the main menu to enter Roster Ranch and then select ‘Recruit Pokémon’ from the options here. If you’re looking at the roster for the first time that day, it’ll be free but if you’re refreshing it again then you’ll be prompted to pay VP or use Quick Coupons.
If you’ve got any Quick Coupons in your inventory, these will be used first automatically instead of your VP.
Once you’ve opened up the Roster itself, you can look at the Pokémon that are currently available to you.
Step Two – Inspect the Pokémon
Spending your VP on a Pokémon is a big decision, so naturally you’ll want to inspect each individual’s stats and moves before you decide to make them a part of your team. That’s what a good trainer does!
Highlight the Pokémon you want to inspect and look on the left side of the screen to see their stats and stat alignment. You can then see their current moves and ability on the right side of the screen.
You can also press Y to take a closer look at their moves and abilities. Doing so will let you scroll through each individual move to learn its basic premise, category, power, accuracy and range. These are all things you need to take into consideration when deciding whether or not this Pokémon will be a good addition to your growing team.
Step Three – Recruit Pokémon
Once you’ve decided which Pokémon you want to recruit, you need to then press A to recruit them. You then need to choose between a Trial Recruitment and a Permanent Recruitment.
Trial Recruitment
A trial recruitment will cost you nothing, meaning no VP or Quick Coupons will be spent. This will allow you to add the selected Pokémon to your team for a period of seven days. After this time is up, the Pokémon will be returned to roster ranch. This is essentially a try before you buy.
As someone who’s still finding their feet with Pokémon, I’m personally going to use this feature as much as possible to help build myself a stable team as well as learn more about each Pokémon’s advantages and disadvantages.
Permanent Recruitment
Permanent recruitment will add the Pokémon to your own collection for good, just as the name suggests.
Now, you’ll have two choices on how to purchase a Pokémon for permanent recruitment. You can choose to spend 2,500 VP or spend one Teammate Tickets. Either way, you’ll be giving your chosen Pokémon a new home amongst your team.
How to return Pokémon in Pokémon Champions
If you find your box is full up and you want to have a sort out to give yourself more space, you can always return Pokémon to Kitt at Roster Ranch for free. However, there is a catch, once you return a Pokémon you cannot get it back – so make sure you really want to send them away.
To return Pokémon, head to Roster Ranch and select the ‘Return Pokémon’ option. Then, select which Pokémon you want to return from your boxes and confirm your choice.
You will not get any of your spent VP, Quick Coupons, or Teammate Tickets back when returning a Pokémon. Doing this will simply free up more space in your box.
Good luck battling it out in Pokémon Champions!
