Primal Battles #1: Cynthia versus Red

I have to go with Cynthia. Between Garchomp's Earthquake being able to ohko Pikachu without breaking a sweat, Milotic's Ice Beam and Hydro Pump anhiliting every legendary bird and Charizard, and Spiritomb being immune to half of Mewtwo's moves, it's almost no contest.

Red's team is really unbalanced in typing here, which confused me. In an actual battle in the game, if Red's opponent set up stealth rock it would be a death sentence for everyone but Mewtwo and Pikachu. Speaking of Pikachu, he has an okay set, but the problem is that he's not strong enough to take out most of the other Pokémon and he can't take a hit after failing to KO. Seeing as only two members of Cynthia's team are weak to his moves and Garchomp in immune to 3/4 of those moves and resists the last one, Pikachu doesn't stand a chance against Cynthia's team unless he's got an eviolite or light ball. And even then he'll just have to pray Cynthia doesn't switch to Garchomp.

Another reason for Cynthia's win besides her having a much more balanced team is the synergy her team has. It's not impeccable, but she certainly has some good switch ins. Garchomp can switch in on a thunderbolt meant for Milotic and take no damage, Milotic can easily tank an Ice Beam meant for Garchomp, Spiritomb can take a Psychic meant for Lucario and take no damage, or Garchomp could take a Blast Burn for Lucario and take minimal damage while taking advantage of the one turn cool down Charizard is now stuck with. These switch-ins that Cynthia has provide her a huge advantage over Red, who has 4/6 of his team sharing at least two fatal weaknesses.

I'm wondering why you didn't use Red's iconic in-game team, which was fiersome to battle and much more balanced. If you're taking it from the anime, you could also look at his team roster in Pokémon Origins. Also, if you're not taking from the anime, I'm a bit confused on why you have such narrow typing for move sets and why you use moves such as dig and fly when you already have earthquake and air slash that work so much better.

All in all, my verdict is Cynthia has much better team synergy, much better variation in her movepools, and more strengths against Red's team than she has weaknesses to it. I'd be honestly shocked if Cynthia lost.

 

I'm going with Cynthia, and the level's are close enough with Red's it doesn't really matter at this point. They are both good trainers, I could give you that, but the only reason Cynthia could lose is that her Pokémon are under leveled, but that isn't the case.

 

I'm going to go with Cynthia. Her team is more balanced with Pokémon that can learn a wide variety of moves. Considering your not using the team that Red uses in the original game, the team is somewhat unbalanced with two fire-flying types, and 4/6 of the team being flying-type in the entirity. I feel like the team given to Red is overall unfair in terms as it's completely unbalanced.