How to find and battle challengers in Pokémon Go
World Championship Challenger are special enemies that appear during the Pokémon World Championship event in Pokemon Go.
Fighting these challengers is essential to completing the Pokémon World Cup 2022 timed research quest in Pokémon Go.
To help you achieve that goal, you will learn how to find and fight world championship challengers below, along with everything we know about their team rosters.
On this page:
What are the world championship challengers in Pokémon Go?
World Championship Challengers are trainers you can battle against during the Pokémon World Championship event in Pokémon Go, which means they’ll be hanging around until Tuesday, August 23 at 8 p.m. (local time).
Defeating the World Championship Challengers is part of the Pokémon World Championship 2022 timed research quest, so take the time to fight them!
Like Team Go Rocket Grunts and Rocket Leaders, World Championship Challengers appear at specific PokéStops and invite you to battle when you interact with said stop. PokéStops inhabited by a Challenger will wiggle, but don’t have the discoloration of PokéStops invaded by Team Go Rocket.
The fight follows the typical trainer fight formula, with the expectation that the world championship challengers will not use shields. Thanks to that, they are pretty easy to beat if you have a strong enough team.
After their defeat, you will not receive a Pokémon encounter as a reward. Instead, there are rewards in the form of stardust, Pokéballs, and other items like potions.
In our experience, World Championship Challengers appear fairly regularly at various PokéStops, so it shouldn’t take you long to find one.
The season of Go is here! The latest event is the Pokémon World Championship quest, which also includes a Twitch code giveaway for a team building quest. Elsewhere, be sure to use Daily Adventure Incense for a chance to encounter Galarian Articuno, Galarian Zapdos, and Galarian Moltres. There is also a new special research quest – A Mysterious Incense. Even with Go Fest 2022 behind us, there are still three special research quests you may be working on – Pokémon Go Fest 2022, Rhi’s Arrival, and A Radiant World. This season also saw Candy XL requirements lowered, the introduction of the first Ultra Beasts, and new Prime Gaming rewards every two weeks.
How to battle a world championship challenger in Pokémon Go
There are six unique World Championship Challengers that appear in Pokémon Go during the Pokémon World Championship event.
All battles against these challengers count toward the Pokémon World Championship 2022 timed research quest, so it doesn’t matter if you keep encountering the same trainer.
What makes the World Championship Challengers unique compared to previous challengers is that each has a number of different Pokémon teams available. This means you can fight the Novice Challenger twice in a row, but face a different selection of Pokemon each time.
Because of this, we recommend picking a selection of high-level Pokemon of different types for your team. This increases your chances of winning the fight, especially since the challengers don’t use shields. Check out our best Pokemon page if you need ideas!
World Championship Challenger Lineup List in Pokémon Go
At the time of writing, we don’t yet know all the team options for each World Championship challenger. However, thanks to SilphScience on the The Silph Road subreddit, we know a number of the combinations which we have listed below:
Ambitious challenger teams
| First Pokemon | Second Pokemon | Third Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| Araquanid | register steel | claw flame |
| Araquanid | register steel | sable |
| obstacle | Nidoqueen | Greedent |
| flooded | whale rein | claw flame |
Confident challenger teams
| First Pokemon | Second Pokemon | Third Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| Diggerby | whale rein | Cresselia |
| Clever | Nidoqueen | Cresselia |
| flooded | Mandibuzz | Deoxys – Defense |
| whale rein | Mandibuzz | Deoxys – Defense |
Eager challenger teams
| First Pokemon | Second Pokemon | Third Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| medicine | sable | flooded |
| medicine | sable | whale rein |
Eccentric challenger teams
| First Pokemon | Second Pokemon | Third Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| Sirfetch’d | whale rein | claw flame |
| whale rein | treat | register steel |
Novice Challenger Teams
| First Pokemon | Second Pokemon | Third Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| sable | Alolan Ninetales | obstacle |
| Trevenant | azumarill | Galarian Stunfisk |
Skilled challenger teams
| First Pokemon | Second Pokemon | Third Pokemon |
|---|---|---|
| azumarill | medicine | register steel |
| azumarill | medicine | Trevenant |
| whale rein | sable | Trevenant |
Good luck defeating the World Championship challengers during the Pokémon World Championship event!