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With Winds and Waves releasing next year and covering scam after scam recently I wanted to get to something familiar. So this list will not cover Elite Four or Champions as that may be for another time. So what are the worst Gym Leaders.

Gen 1- Blaine

When it comes to the original 8 there is little challenge unless you picked Charmander, but there is one Gym Leader that really is no challenge no matter the starter and that is because of the steps you need to take to reach him. Cinnabar Island is only approachable by using HM Surf in the original games and both Pikachu and Eevee have access to water type moves. Surf is a high powered move espicially for an HM you only need to teach it and spam it to win added to that the puzzle in this gym is just a few questions that are very easy to get right and you can be done with this gym battle very quickly.

Gen 2 – Morty

Surprised Whitney is not here, but that simply is because she is an actual challenge that requires grinding, preplanning, and an idea on how to get past her. Morty is right after Whitney and usually by the time you are done with Whitney Morty provides no challenge. He speciallizes in Ghost types, but it really doesn’t help as the preplanning and grinding you did for Whitney makes you way overleveled for Morty’s gym so long as you aren’t using Fighting type or Normal type moves here you should win.

Gen 3 – Roxanne

I know going for the first boss in these games is sort of mean, but I think Roxanne is the worst. None of the starters have any trouble here given each one is about to evolve and Torchic gains a Fighting type advantage and even if they do Shroomish is common in Petalburg Woods. With Brock if you are starting with Charmander or Pikachu you have to think, but with Roxanne there is nothing stopping you.

Gen 4 – Candice

Ice is the worst type in these games behind Bug and even though Pryce and Brycen are arguably worse Candice still takes the cake here. Now she does come from the region with the least amount of fire types, but at this point you could have already travelled to Iron Island and gotten the gift Riolu and even evolved it, second her Pokemon have so many common weaknesses and such low defence that her fight isn’t hard in the slightest, third you just made your way through Mt. Coronet and most of the Pokemon there have some sort of advantage against her.

Gen 5 – Burgh

When it came to Gen 5 I wanted to consider both games. That is what saved Brycen his B2W2 fight is optional and several gyms were added or swapped around. Burgh is fought at the same time with the same Pokemon and same strategy to win. Even his impact on the story was dialed back from helping the player in find the stolen fossil in Nacrene City, finding Bianca’s lost and stolen Pokemon in Castilia City, and showing up to help in the Pokemon Leauge to standing there giving the third gym badge.

Gen 6 – All of them

Not a single gym stood out in Gen 6 in fact even after you unlock Mega Evolution I rarely even had to use it. Most gyms were push overs and route trainers were often harder. It didn’t help that the lack of new Pokemon meant that I was using less new Pokemon and more Pokemon I’d used in the past. Fairy typing was the new thing added and while things were easier they also made the gyms boring and simple. I do like some Gen 6 Pokemon and they have been mainstays on my teams in recent years Fletchling and Pancham lines are always fun, but the sheer ease of this game makes the actual bosses unmemorable.

Gen 7 – I decided that Totem Pokemon kind of count: Raticate

Much like Black and White and their sequels I wanted to consider both the base Sun and Moon and the Ultra games. Now you could argue I am putting the first and easiest boss from Pokemon games again but I would argue it is physically impossible to lose this. With Roxanne I can see some new players struggleing, but this fight is so impossible to lose it is amazing. First once again your starter is not far from evolution and for Raticate that is worse than you may think. Popplio has fairy, Litten just learned Double Kick a decent early fighting type move, and Rowlet while not having moves specific to gain type advantage is defensible enough that it doesn’t matter. What is more both Machop and Makuhita can be encountered very early as well as numerous Fairy type Pokemon all of which have advantage to normal and dark type Pokemon.

Gen 8 – Gordie/Melody

In Pokemon Sword and Shield depending on version two of the gyms can change and if the battle was just terrible in one game that would be fine. Bea and Allister are fine for how early they are in game being the fourth gym leaders. At gym 6 though you encounter Gordie or Melody Rock or Ice. Rock is one of the worst types in the game very few Pokemon are good with it and Ice has so many weaknesses a good water, grass, electric, or fighting type will make these battles seem like jokes. It isn’t so much that the typing is bad for how late you battle them you likely have a counter to every one of their Pokemon without much thought.

Gen 9 – Brassious

It is very rare for me to use the exact same strategy for two different gyms one after another. Brassious is a grass type gym leader and he comes during a normal playthrough as the second gym and third challenge (if you go for the rock titan first). Katy is the first gym leader and due to grass and bug having common weaknesses in fire and flying you could actually go in with the same strategy and very little changes. Bug and Grass have had gyms in the same region before, but usually much further apart. None of the starters even struggle here and that is simply because all three have ways to get past here. You can even catch Fletchling in the first few minutes of the game and at that point Brassious may as well give you the badge.

Let’s hope Gen 10 has some good battles for bosses I have advoided leaks till now so I want to make some predictions on the starters and everything from the trailers. I know I will only be proven wrong when the games actually release, but that is the fun of speculation.

For legal purposes all things here are allegations and are under Fair Use. So Werster has caused problems in the Pokemon Community. Also water is wet and the sky is blue some things don’t change. Now I am not saying he is a bad speedrunner his gameplay and skill are pretty good, I am saying he is a bad person though, and shows no sign of taking responscibility or changing his ways. Werster was originally part of the Sonic the Hedgehog community he has also done speedruns of most of the Warioware and Warioland games and a few random games here and there so he is an established runner. For the record that is only the Speedrun.com history, but according to Pulse Effects this history goes back to before a ligitamate site and rules were established.

Werster seems to have problems with everyone and while there isn’t really an account of everything he did in the Sonic community, if anything, he doesn’t seem banned from it though it has been 4 years since his last Sonic speedrun was submitted. There are accounts of everything he did to damage the Pokemon Community though and probably contributed to the poor reputation of toxicity even though it is actually a good and friendly community. The most egregious is his behavior overall towards everyone in the speedrunning and Pokemon community in general. His history dates back to 2013 before speedrunning was even a thing at the time he tried to ban 90% of runners and prevent times run on emulator which is common practice now and even then.

For the record the original Red and Blue cartirges were already collectors items so over a hundred dollars roughly even more now. Further the ability to record gameplay on the aging software would cost hundreds. You can do all that or use an emulator and any screen recording feature for free. Now, Werster did have an advantage as he likely had original carts and a gameboy advance or color on hand, but that just isn’t viable for some. This is where his worst moments to others came he was adamantly against Emulator runs and sadly due to his entire personality refused and banned multiple runs. The true reason for this is likely a World Record run by the then newcomer Evarion hitting a 1:50 in red despite being legit and an excellent run Werster rejected it leaving the first record by one of Pokemon’s best runner lost and kept Werster at the top of the leaderboard since he had console and was a moderator. To add salt to a wound Werster submitted a cheated run on emulator under a different name, Sarah Hagan, to prove a point only he was making and a minor one at that. How did everyone figure out it was him? He recently admitted it and several pointed it out that “Sarah Hagan” used strategies that weren’t common and only an established runner would use despite being completely new.

After that a pattern began anytime someone beat Werster at something there would be some sort of incident. After another runner did a impressive run of Pokemon Yellow, one that took years of practice and beat the record. Werster decided to run the game, but something was odd the run and commentary from Werster seemed to take place at different times meaning he seemed to know what would happen before it did. Meaning this run wasn’t live and thus no way to tell if it was even legit only difference he beat the other runners time by three minutes, but was mysteriously never posted to Speedrun.com. Similarly, Werster also insulted both the Pokemon Challenges and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (PMD) Speedrunners the latter of which he is a former moderator before being banned by the current head mod.

First the PMD Speedrun community has different rules and most of them are community driven. One rule that is upheld is you can close a DS and pause the timers for legitamate reasons. Despite him never interacting with the community in any capacity decided to ban the head mod, call them an idiot, reject times that followed rules that were voted on by the community, then said that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon wasn’t an actual game so didn’t matter. The head mod, Halqery, messaged Speedrun.com and had him banned.

Next the Pokemon Challenges community rather went once again ignored by Werster. Pokemon Challenges tend to focus on battle facilities and tactics with more advanced ai. Werster decided to not only insult LGRX a fairly small long form battler, but aimed to use speedrun techniques to cheat in the Battle Facility. Unfortunately, RNG Manipulation and save scuming is frowned upon in this community. While RNG Manip is good in speedruns to save time if you try manipulating the game it goes against the idea of a challenge thus was banned alongside save scum. His save scum was caught by Magpie someone who knows more about the Battle Facility and its strategies than anyone. who pointed out at the pace he was going would be impossible to have win rates that high and despite giving benefit of the doubt found it didn’t match his in game time. Even if offline play was pointed out most who do that post the full vod which never was posted likely due to save scuming to inflate wins.

Sources:

Speedrun.com “Werster” Speedrun.com, https://www.speedrun.com/users/werster?view=fullgame

“The Werster Situation is More Ridiculous Than You Think.” YouTube, uploaded by Pulse Effects, 1 August 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7mLRnqNEa8&t=679s.