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Across all of the core series games, which Champion's team is easiest to reproduce to challenge them?

Some parameters to evaluate them -
1. All Pokemon of their team found in the game/region with minimal trading/transfer from previous generations
2. Availability of said Pokemon before the first E4/Champion battle
3. Availability of Pokemon at the appropriate levels (Lance's Level 47 Dragonite, for example, would make it very difficult to mirror)
4. Any held item used by their Pokemon

There may be other things but I can't think of them right now. Of course things found only by datamining need (like IVs and EVs) need not be included.

Thanks in advance,
Emty

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Probably Cynthia or Iris
Steven is automatically out because Metagross is unavailable before his battle.
So is Blue/Hau/Kukui and Leon, as you can't get the other starters. Also that guy from LGPE. Steven and Lance are also automatically out, leaving us with Wallace, Cynthia, Alder, Iris, Diantha and Geeta. You can't get an Archeops in B2W2, so that's out too
Well, no need to completely rule out any Champion because of ONE Pokemon, I just want to know who's the easiest to copy, so 5/6 is still pretty great.
Lance: Charizard and Aerodactyl are post-game in HGSS, and I think they're completely unobtainable in GSC.
Steven (RS): Metagross is post-game, you need to trade to get both fossils.
Wallace: Milotic is difficult to find, you need to breed for leech seed Ludicolo and for toxic on multiple Pokemon. So this one is completely possible but very time-consuming.
Cynthia: Spiritomb requires interacting with another player.

1 Answer

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Best answer

Geeta's team would be the easiest to build.
All of her team members are readily obtainable in both Scarlet and Violet before defeating the Elite 4 for the first time, without the requirement to trade or bypass post-game exclusivity. Her team also has no Egg or Tutor moves. All other Champion teams have post-game or trade-only Pokemon, items, and/or moves.

Blue has version exclusives, trade evolutions, and Pokemon found in the Safari Zone, in all three games.

Lance has Pokemon that are unobtainable in both generations in which he is Champion, namely all three underleveled Dragonite. In Gen 2, Charizard and Aerodactyl are unobtainable without trading with Gen 1.

Steven, Wallace, and Cynthia have multiple of the same TM move, which you can only normally obtain once, necessitating breeding and/or trading. Cynthia ramps this up with Egg moves on some of her Pokemon, as well as with a large portion of her team being difficult to obtain (Spiritomb notably requiring another game to obtain).

Alder is a post-game fight, so very little is gated away. The only restrictions I can see are the two trade evolutions on his team.

Iris has Archeops, which is post-game only. Her team also has many Dragon-types and pseudolegendaries that are difficult to level up.

Diantha's Gardevoir is holding Gardevoirite and has Shadow Ball, both of which are post-game only. She also has both fossils, while you can only pick one.

Kukui has a version exclusive to Sun, and a starter you didn't pick. Hau has the latter, as well as a BP move.

Trace has Vileplume, a Let's Go! Pikachu exclusive. He also has Pidgeotite, which is post-game only, a restriction that cannot be bypassed as LGPE lacks held items.

Leon has a starter you didn't pick. Also, if you picked Grookey, his Seismitoad has an Egg move.

BDSP scales back the complexity of Cynthia's team's movesets and makes Spiritomb and Milotic more reasonably obtainable, while also giving every team member a held item. Her Milotic has a Flame Orb, which is post-game only.

(Fun fact: I had spent a few hours typing out detailed explanations for each Champion and their team members to answer this question with detailed analyses, but I hit the character limit and could not reasonably trim it. I may make the detailed explanations available elsewhere, perhaps on Pastebin?)

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Metagross is post-game in all 5 Hoenn games, right?
Wicked answer man, I find it really interesting how Leon's Pokemon's moves change depending on what starter you picked
Just what I was looking for, thanks. I'd hate for your writeup to go waste so be sure to include that writeup in another answer here if you can, or paste the pastebin link as a comment (=
@sumwun: Yes, it is only available post-game / post Delta Episode as a gift in Steven's home
For those interested, you can find my detailed writeup/analysis at https://pastebin.com/8zbBLdCn
Note that there may be errors. Feel free to point them out here.