While you start with a roster of pre-selected critters, getting more Pokémon in Pokémon Champions is essential for building well-rounded teams. You have a few options at your disposal for unlocking new Pokémon, including transferring them from Pokémon Home and, occasionally, getting them as battle pass rewards. However, the primary method is recruitment.
Below, we explain how to unlock more Pokémon in Pokémon Champions and how the recruitment system works.
How to recruit Pokémon in Pokémon Champions
We’ve outlined how to import Pokemon from Pokemon Home to Pokemon Champions, and if Pokemon are rewards in the battle pass, you get them automatically when you reach the corresponding reward tier. Recruitment is the other way to unlock new Pokémon in Pokémon Champions. You learn how to do it in the tutorial, but if you skipped that, here’s how it works.
Choosing “Recruit” from the main menu will send you to Roster Ranch, where Kitt, the proprietor, has a few options for you. You can:
- Recruit one Pokémon from a random selection
- Send Pokémon on your team back to the ranch
- Transfer Pokémon from Home
- Send Pokémon back to Home
You get one recruitment pull at no charge every 22 hours, and each pull has 10 Pokémon selected at random from Pokémon Champions‘ Pokédex. According to Serebii.net, Eternal Flower Floette is not available for recruitment. Alongside this, certain Vivillon wing patterns and Furfrou trims are also not recruitable, though these variations are cosmetic only.
You can see the stats, moves, and abilities of all 10 Pokémon, and you’re allowed to pick one Pokémon from the selection. You can recruit them for free on a “trial” basis, which lets you use them for seven days, or permanently using a Teammate Ticket (obtainable by completing in-game missions and the battle pass) or spending 2,500 VP. After that, you either have to wait the 22 hours for another free pull or spend VP or Quick Coupons to shorten the time before you can pull again. The required amount depends on how much time remains before your next free pull.
Pokémon recruited at the ranch will have a random stat maxed out and a pre-determined set of moves. If you want to change anything for the Pokémon (stats, moves, nature, or ability), you’ll need to spend VP training it. You also cannot train any Pokémon that you are only trialing out. To train it, you’ll need to add it to your permanent roaster using Teammate Tickets or spending VP.
If you have an EV-trained Pokémon outside of Champions, they’ll get a corresponding stat boost if you transfer them to Champions through Home. In a scenario where you’re picking between transferring a Pokémon you’ve trained and recruiting the same species of Pokémon in Champions, it’s better to use your already-trained Pokémon instead of recruiting one from the ranch, unless the recruitable Pokémon has a more useful ability or a maxed-out stat that benefits you.
Bear in mind that any training for Pokémon transferred from Home to Champions will not reflect on their stats when you send them back to Home and on to other Pokémon games. Their Champions stats will also be saved, so training outside of Champions won’t reflect in Champions if you transfer them back.
You start Pokémon Champions with a storage limit of 30 Pokémon, and that limit is shared between recruited Pokémon and those that come from Home. You can expand it by purchasing the starter pack (which increases the limit to 80) or the membership subscription (which increases the limit to 1,000). Whatever your limit, when you reach the max, you’ll have to send a Pokémon back to the ranch or back to Pokémon Home if you want to recruit more.