Top Ten Worst Pokemon Gym Leaders / Elite Four

When you sweep a Bug gym leader with a Bayleef, you know something is wrong. His only competent Pokémon is Scyther, and he is way too easy to set up on. Not only that, but he is forgettable - no personality whatsoever. None.
Is Bugsy a boy or a girl? Seriously, look at him/her. It doesn't help that he/she specializes in the type with the lowest average base stat total.
Really, he, or she, as some people say, is a terrible idea! Pink hair, short jeans, neon green.

While X and Y had lots of forgettable characters, Wikstrom is the most forgettable because not only does he have only four Pokémon, but he also has no personality and a bad design, even compared to the other XY Elite Four members.
His Aegislash is the only thing he has going for him in battle. Also, Klefki? Really?
Just look at his design, and you'll see he has a dried-out Staryu on his head!

Mud-Slap. It's the perfect move to showcase why a trainer like you should use Flying-type Pokemon. - Falkner
His gym and his Pokemon were GIVEN to him by his OWN father. Yeah, that's how much he sucks.
How did he even manage to become a gym leader with only a level 7 Pidgey and a level 9 Pidgeotto?

X and Y had a lot of forgettable characters and gym leaders, plus the entire Elite Four and the Champion in general. Olympia just plain sucks! Her design is okay, in my opinion. I like her cape, but she's just so easy to beat in those games! I mean, Korrina was pretty hard, but this fight tones down the difficulty and makes the already easy games even easier!
Lacking in personality, having a weak team, and looking a bit creepy are all reasons I voted for her. While the first two apply to most XY gym leaders, the third one is a bit much.
To be honest, I forgot all about him after I left his gym. That can't be a good sign.
He uses two Pokemon, one not fully evolved, from Kanto, despite being the 5th Johto gym leader. Also a bit boring in personality.
This guy seriously looks like Jack Black. Po the panda in human form.

Ignoring the anime, Cilan shares his spot with two others and is replaced in the next game. This leaves a really boring first impression that's never expanded upon. I'm not the biggest fan of Pansage, his signature Pokémon, either. Cilan is just forgettable.
Regarding the anime, the 20 episodes I watched and the movies he was in made me dislike him. His voice was annoying and his talks about food were boring. I can see why people would defend Cilan. I'm only voting for him out of the process of elimination.

The Gen 6 Electric leader is by far my least favorite leader in the series. I'm actually kind of surprised he's in the top 10, but very glad.
Personality: Possibly the blandest leader ever. An inventor? Nice, but we don't see him inventing anything. And that's about it. All he does is claim he does random stuff. Yeah, sure.
His battle: He is undoubtedly the most annoying leader ever. Well, not in regular play - he's manageable there - but in a Nuzlocke, the only way to not have a bad time is to use the free Lucario or just simply hope you get a relatively decent Ground-type Pokémon. And hope your Ground-type Pokémon makes it to him. In my second X Nuzlocke run, I only managed to get a Dugtrio, and he died against a gym trainer. The actual gym battle itself didn't look too good either.
In the show: If memory serves, he was kind of annoying.
Overall, he's still a really bad leader. Bland, hard in a bad way, and forgettable as a whole.

She wasn't even that hard. My Skiploom could deal with the Rollouts easily because it was female, and I used Sleep Powder and Leech Seed. In my other gameplay, my Gloom beat her Clefairy and Miltank because I had enough time to use Growth a lot during Clefairy's Metronomes. And her Clefairy was a much bigger deal than her Miltank.
The Clefairy was more of a problem than the Miltank. You were given tons of chances to block out the Miltank, but Clefairy could even have Sacred Fire!
I traded for the Machop and evolved it into a Machoke. I honestly didn't find Miltank that hard. Her Clefairy's Metronome used Aerial Ace, though.

Honestly, Gardenia, don't show your belly to the trainers. It's gross.
When I used Wing Attack, bam! Her Roserade fainted. Too easy! Train more, Gardenia!

The Newcomers



I don't know if it is just me, but I just can't stand Glacia. I only played Omega Ruby, not the original one, so I don't know if she was better or worse. She was forgettable, and I didn't really like what she said before the battle. Her design is really nothing special, and she was the number one person in the whole game that I had trouble beating.
My Pokémon were always getting confused and frozen. I had to waste 8 revives and over a dozen full restores to finally beat her stupid Froslass. Right when I killed Froslass, I was like, "Finally... Wait... She has ANOTHER FROSLASS!? DANG IT!" I haven't played the original Ruby and Sapphire yet, so I can't say much more, but in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, I just really hate Glacia.

The worst part about Clair is that you have to go out of your way to do something for her to "prove your worth" when you beat her instead of getting the final badge. At least with Jasmine, there was a sick Pokémon in need of TLC, but Clair just has anger management problems.
At least Whitney is a kid. Clair is an adult, and not only did she whine, but she made you do a side quest as well. At least she had a good team, though.

While his personality and design are fine, no 8th gym leader should be allowed to use three Pokemon with only three moves.

Aaron uses one of the worst types of Pokemon. And to those who say he's the one with the Lucario, the Aaron we are talking about is in the Elite 4.
Aaron, the one that died with the Lucario? Yeah, he was really annoying. I don't know any other Aaron, so...
I ALWAYS forget about him because he doesn't really have anything to do with the plot.


Sigh... this Gym Leader. When I bought Pokémon Black for the first time, many friends warned me about this fight. I struggled a bit with Lenora, and Burgh was pathetically easy, but this was the battle where I had to try my hardest to keep my cool. Even with a Sandile or Krokorok, you can still lose to her "death weapons" - her twin Emolga and a Zebstrika.
Rock Tomb can deal heavy damage to her Emolga, and Dig is effective against her Zebstrika, but if you don't have either of those TMs, you're in trouble. I do like Elesa's character in the games, and I respect Zebstrika because of her, but her fight feels like such a time-waster. Shocked again... "Let's try the red one. Not again!" -Homer Simpson, getting electrocuted repeatedly

Fantina in the Adventures manga: A funny woman from the Kalos region who laughs at Diamond and Pearl's jokes.
Fantina in the games: Just way too uppity. She would probably be voiced by Tress MacNeille. Plus, her Mismagius is a tank.
That one has to be the hardest so far for me. I get that a too easy gym leader isn't good, but an unbeatable one isn't either. She's pretty cool, though.
Oooh La La! It's ze French gym leader! Seriously. Too pompous and annoying.

Uses the worst Pokemon type of all time.

Lt. Surge's puzzle is super annoying in the way that it's planned out. You have to look through the trash cans to activate a switch, which in theory is right next to it. But if you fail to find it, the gym arena resets the switches, and you must find the first switch all over again. I mean, that's just the floor. The gym battle is worse, as he has his Voltorb and his Raichu, and unless you have a Ground-type, they're tough to beat.
In Pokémon Yellow, this guy uses only one Pokémon. That's just plain dumb. I know Pokémon Yellow is based on the anime, but it would have been better to give him additional Pokémon since the player can.


Rude? He called her best product trash. Ash gets 1 for arrogance.
Along with being sexist in the anime, she has little personality in the games. Easily the worst Kanto leader.
This guy himself is fine. What bothers me, however, is that stupid English name! Seriously, I get they wanted a name that sounds like bug, but that one has to be the worst. Bugsy, as a name, was fine. However, Burgh simply sounds like someone is throwing up. I watched his battle against Ash in the anime, in the dubbed version, and every time Ash said his name, I had trouble taking it seriously because it sounded like he was about to throw up. Seriously, how hard was it to keep Arti/Arty/Artie? That doesn't sound too ridiculous or too hard for kids to remember, right? Even some other languages kept this name, but they just had to go and give him a throw-up noise as a name...
Again, not hating on the guy himself - he's fine.

Even though he's a Champion, he deserves to be here. He tries too hard to teach the main character, then gets beaten before he even battles! His theme sucks, his team sucks, his anime depiction sucks.

He has a bland personality like a lot of other gym leaders. He has an incredibly uninspired and lazily put together team (seriously, how hard would it have been to at least give him a Misdreavus?) and has so many counters to him that it makes the battle incredibly easy without having to grind levels. Johto had tons of lame gym leaders, but Morty is by far the worst of them.
He's Mort-poo and will weaken all my Psychic Pokemon in Let's Go Pikachu. Only Pikachu himself can help me win!