Spinoff Spotlight: Pokémon Masters EX
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Art by Shadowshocker.
Introduction
With a franchise as big as Pokémon, it's hardly a surprise that they have strayed out of the bounds of Nintendo's consoles and into the realm of mobile games. While the most popular and well-known of these is Pokémon GO, there have been other titles, including the mobile gacha game Pokémon Masters Ex. Available for both IOS and Android devices starting in August 2019 and downloaded millions of times, including ten million in just the first four days, many trainers have enjoyed this different take on the beloved series.
Story
The basis of the game's story revolves around Trainers from all of the different regions being brought to the artificial island of Pasio (sometimes by force) to compete in a big tournament, the PML. You battle your way through the various Trainers of the PML, all while trying to defeat the evil Team Break, whose stated goal is to sabotage the PML by stealing Pokémon from their Trainer.
Although the story itself is lackluster and frustrating due to infrequent updates, with these only happening every few months or so, Pokémon Masters really shines with its charming and often heartwarming writing, which a lot of times takes place between characters who wouldn't normally interact. Two great examples of this come from two of the game's events. The New World Dilemma event brings Cyrus to Pasio, where he ends up meeting Sophocles, and while Sophocles ultimately can't convince Cyrus of the importance of spirit, it's an emotional event that's reminiscent of Cyrus's character in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon. The second is the event The Ideal Formula, which brings the long-awaited reunion of the Pokémon Black and White protagonists and N and sees a heart-to-heart between him and Hilbert as they reconnect in the aptly named chapter "No more Good-Byes".
Sync Pairs
Pokémon Masters's main draw is the ability to team up with Trainers from all around the Pokémon universe, which is done through a Sync Pair of a Trainer and Pokémon. The constantly expanding roster is made up of often iconic pairs featuring Champions, rivals, and villains from the mainline games, like Cynthia and Garchomp and Gladion and Silvally. Additionally, Pokémon Masters comes with the gacha staple of alternate costumes, usually in the form of holiday pairs or Sygna Suits, which are designed around a specific Pokémon. These alternate costumes often see Trainers pairing up with Pokémon they wouldn't otherwise have access to, such as Erika and Comfey and Steven and Alolan Sandslash. Like most gacha games, however, you likely won't be able to collect them all without paying for more gems to pull Sync Pairs with.
Mechanics
Battles
Pokémon Masters is made up of 3v3 battles in which you or, in co-op, two other players battle against a group of NPCs. There are three types of Sync Pairs: Support, which is focused on buffing and healing the team, Tech, which is focused on raising its own stats and debuffing or inflicting statuses on opponents, and Strike, made up of both physical and special attackers whose main purpose is to damage the enemy. Like the main series games, every Pokémon only has four moveslots, but these slots can't be changed and can contain damaging moves, weather setting moves, moves that affect the stats of your team, and potions. Many moves cost between one and four of your maximum of six bars in your Sync Gauge, which limits the number of moves you can use or queue at once. Additionally, every pair has a unique, powerful Sync Move that can be used after a certain number of moves. These are similar to the Z-Moves of gen 7, though they can be used more than once and grant stat buffs after use. Additionally, the release of Sygna Suit Leon and Eternatus brought Max Moves to the game, one-time use moves that are significantly stronger than normal moves.
Like in the base game, there are a variety of strategies that can be used when building a team. Most teams will only want one Strike pair to avoid running down the Sync Gauge and being forced to wait for it to recharge. A team can be built around your Striker of choice to properly support them, including adding weather setters and Supports that can appropriately buff special or physical attack.
Click on an image to read more about the team!
Blue (Pidgeot), Sygna Suit Elesa (Rotom), and Misty (Starmie)
This is a basic team that makes use of earlier released units that still stack up among their newer competition.
Striker: The Striker of choice is Blue and Pidgeot. He is able to boost his own Special Attack, accuracy, and critical hit ratio. Air Slash gives him a 30% chance for a flinch, and Air Cutter has a high critical hit chance and hits all opponents. Upon activating his Sync Move and Mega Evolving, Air Slash is replaced with Hurricane, which is three times as powerful as his base moves and makes good use of his accuracy boosts. Additionally, a Passive Skill in the form of Acuity means that his accuracy cannot be reduced, making Blue an extremely strong choice to begin a build with.
Support: Sygna Suit Elesa and Rotom serve the dual purpose of a support for Blue and an evasion tank. Elesa can boost the Special Attack, accuracy, and critical hit ratio of her team, as well as reduce the Sync Move countdown, allowing Blue to get access to his Sync Move, and therefore Hurricane, quicker. Additionally, her Passive Skills, Look Alive 9 and Fast Runner, mean that her evasiveness is raised every time she gets hit with an attack and cannot be lowered.
Support: Rounding out the team is Misty and Starmie, one of the better free units in the game. Misty's Catch Us If You Can! move will raise the evasiveness of a single ally and give them gradual healing, which will heal them every time they attack. Using this on Sygna Suit Elesa and attacking with Thunder Shock, which only uses one bar of the Sync Gauge, will increase her longevity if Misty is KOed. She also comes with a handy X Sp. Def All, raising the Special Defense of her whole team by two stages with no Sync Gauge cost.
Maxie (Groudon), Erika (Vileplume), and Lyra (Meganium)
A standard weather team, using sun for the weather and taking advantage of automatic weather setting.
Striker: Maxie and Groudon are the centerpiece of this team. The combination of Passive Skills in Sunburst and Drought Alert 5 sets sun as soon as Maxie enters the field and extends the duration of it and subsequent sun by 50%. Boasting powerful moves like the 189-Base Power Precipice Blades and 125-Base Power Solar Beam, which charges instantly in the sun, Maxie is able to to quickly deal massive damage. His access to Dire Hit+, which increases his critical chance by two stages, and the skill Expand the Land!, which normally increases his Attack and Special Attack by two stages at the cost of one stage of Defense and Special Defense but in the sun also gives him a third stage of Attack and an accuracy boost, means that Maxie can efficiently boost his own stats to great heights. Finally, his expanded Sync Grid gives him access to Solar Beam: Mind Games 9, which lowers the enemy's Special Defense every time Solar Beam hits, allowing Maxie to tear through any opponent who doesn't resist his attacks.
Support: Erika and Vileplume serve as a sun tank, keeping the attacks away from Maxie to allow him to do as much damage as possible. She can raise her Special Defense with X Sp. Def and both her Special Attack by one stage and Defense by three stages with the move Pour It On!, bringing her already solid base defenses to even greater numbers. Having Healing Sun 2 in her Sync Grid also means that Erika heals 10% of her HP after she makes a move, allowing her to more efficiently perform the role of a tank. Support can also be provided to the whole team in the form of Stun Spore, using paralysis to disrupt opposing Pokémon. Finally, Energy Ball has a 10% chance to lower Special Defense, and combining this with her Special Attack boosts can allow her to get in some damage for only two bars of the Sync Gauge.
Support: Lyra and Meganium are indispensable to sun teams, since she can help the whole team set up very quickly. With her expanded Sync Grid, she gains access to the Solarize ability, which sets sun after she uses her Sync Move, allowing her to continue set sun indefinitely, Maxie's Drought Alert 5 also means that this sun lasts 50% longer than normal. She also comes with a variety of support moves. Dire Hit All increases the critical chance of the whole team, and her move Sunny Side Up! raises the Attack, Special Attack, and Speed of the whole team by one stage, or two in the sun. The move Light Screen raises the Special Defense of the whole team for a short time, ad Light Screen: MP Refresh 3 in her Sync Grid gives her a chance for more uses of the move, allowing her to more effectively support the team.
Cyrus (Palkia), Skyla (Swanna), and Winona (Pelipper)
This team is composed solely of units that anyone can get for free, except for Winona—but she is a 3* gacha, and those rates are extraordinarily high, so you'll grab her soon enough if you pull on banners regularly. Cyrus is limited time, but the event to obtain him comes around often enough, and he doesn't cost any gems to obtain. The team is centered around supporting Cyrus.
Striker: Cyrus and Palkia may be a Dragon Sync pair, but their claim to fame is that Hydro Pump does insane damage—boosting his Speed can also power up Hydro Pump, so any Support Sync Pairs can work if they can boost his Speed. Cyrus has a passive that boosts the power of critical hits by 90%, so he wants to be able to land them often. Through Cyrus's sync grid, he can raise his own critical hit rate if he lands a critical hit, which Spacial Rend makes easier. Water Pulse is a cheap option if you cannot afford to queue Hydro Pump or Spacial Rend, although this is usually resolved after a few Speed boosts. "New World Order!" can raise Special Attack and Speed by 3, at the cost of 25% of Palkia's remaining HP—an acceptable tradeoff with Skyla around.
Support: Skyla and Swanna have simple duties. They provide Speed and Defense buffs, and can heal Cyrus with Potion. What makes her special, however, is that she has a 1 gauge move in Gust, which means that sync moves can be very easy to reach, and her sync grid can turn Gust into a move that effectively costs 0 gauge or a move that can make opponents flinch. Skyla is rather renowned in that she is one of the best free options players can get, and this shows in her sync grid, where she boasts the ability to boost Potion's heals by approximately 20%, giving her an astounding 60% heal.
Support: Winona and Pelipper are rather basic in what they can contribute to the team. She can boost the team's stats with shared Theme Skills with Skyla, and she can set up Rain Dance for Cyrus, although the team does not rely on rain for damage. Air Slash and Hurricane means that she can either support the team with flinches, or hit hard in rain. Winona can be replaced for a better rain setter, a better team buffer, or a better teammate that can support the team in other ways Winona can't.
Stamina
Pokémon Masters has a stamina system that limits the number of certain stages you can play per day, which in turn encourages you to spend gems to refill it if you want to be able to grind events or items for leveling or unlocking level caps. There are also usually at least three events that use stamina running, so one must decide between upgrading their Sync Pairs or participating in said events. Stamina can be increased through increases to Player Ranking, but these take a while to achieve. The game also gives you an extra 200 stamina daily for free but, depending on your Player Ranking, this may not be sufficient to completely refill your stamina bar.
Leveling and Sync Grids
Pairs come in levels of 1 star to 5 stars, depending on which pair it is, and their star level can be increased with the requisite level upgrades. Sync Pairs can all be leveled to 100 initially, but through the use of items, that cap can be increased to 140 at the time of this writing. Additionally, all pairs have a Sync Grid that can be filled out by using Sync Orbs, granting bonuses in the form of stat ups, move power increases, and refreshing uses of limited moves, among other things. Finally, certain pairs can unlock an EX level, which gives them a new costume, increases their stats, and buffs their Sync Move. All of this adds up to one of the biggest problems in Pokémon Masters EX: Grinding.
Fully unlocking a pair's level cap from 100 to 140 takes nine unique items between the different levels of drinks, tomes, and notes needed, which can be obtained in two different areas. The highest level of these areas thankfully gives out all levels of items, but also take 30 Stamina each. Most players will have between 150-300 max stamina, granting them 5-10 plays of one of these stages. This means that it takes several days or even a week to fully unlock the level cap of a single Sync Pair if you don't use gems to refill your stamina. The grinding required to max out your favorite Sync Pairs can be overwhelming, especially when the level cap continues to increase, meaning new sets of items are needed to once again unlock the highest cap. Multiply this by the nearly 200 Sync Pairs currently in the game, and a nightmare of never-ending grinding unfolds before you if you wish to have all of your units maxed out.
Events
Like most mobile games, Pokémon Masters is full of events, often coming with the release of new Sync Pairs and giving trainers the chance to earn some of the rarer items, like five-star upgrades or move candy coins.
Champion Stadium, Battle Villa, and Legendary Arena
While not quite events in the traditional sense, these are all areas that are open at varying frequencies that give you the chance to earn gems, EX upgrade items, and other items that will make your Sync Pairs stronger.
Egg Events
Events in which you can get Eggs that hatch after a certain amount of time that will form a Sync Pair with your player character, starting at one star. Most of these have a pool of about five Pokémon, of which usually about two or three can be shiny. These Sync Pairs are generally weaker than the ones gotten through gacha, but the events to get them don't cost any stamina or gems to do.
Story Events
These are unrelated to the core story of the game and will instead often expand upon characters from the mainline games. They're usually tied into the release of a set of new Sync Pairs, like the Family Ties event that featured Lillie, Gladion, and Lusamine, and occasionally legendary Sync Pairs like N and Zekrom.
Final Thoughts
Although it suffers from a lot of the drawbacks that most gacha games do, namely never having enough gems to get the Sync Pairs you want, Pokémon Masters EX is an all-around fun and charming game that can increase your appreciation for the series through its portrayal of its characters. If you like to collect stuff or just enjoy gacha games and have twenty or thirty minutes to spare per day, then this is a great addition to your phone, and it will only continue to grow in the future.
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