“It’s not the length of the journey that matters, but the friends you make along the way.”
– Brock Harrison

For avid Pokémon fans, every year is a celebration of Pokémon, but this year (2026) is a special milestone—the franchise celebrates its 30th year!

I may be a little late to the game, as far as adding my personal appreciation for the franchise on the official celebratory month (which was February), but really, since Pokémon is something that is enjoyed so much in every year and season, I’m sure my little delay won’t matter.

SO, my fellow Pokémon enthusiasts (from casual appreciators to hard-core trainers), have you done anything in particular so far this year in celebration of this wonderful world of pocket monsters we get to enjoy?

I’m what you’d call a mid-tier fan. I watched the original anime growing up, have played some of the Pokémon games over the years (like Snap, Stadium, Go, and Legends), know the trad opening song off by heart (lol), own some Pokémon plush, and have done a little bit of fan art over the years.

But this year, after learning about the 30th anniversary, I paused and considered how much fun and joy Pokémon has given me over the years and was inspired to do something extra.

My first go-to was to do some art. But not just any art—a piece with me and my TOP TEAM of Pokémon pals!

As you can imagine, it was a serious challenge trying to narrow now my list to the standard six-Pokémon team. For those not quite in the know, a trainer can have many (many) Pokémon, but can only have six Pokémon in their active battle team.

And I had to pick from a pool of over 1000 Pokémon! Well, it’s not quite so overwhelming as that; not all Pokémon are my favs … and there are dozens that I don’t really know much about, so already that cuts the number down by a significant amount. But … even so, I have quite a few favourites. Way more than the restrictive six headcount.

EEK! How do I choose?

To help me in my quest, I added a few restrictions to my choices:

1. NO Legendries, NO Sub-legendries, NO Mythicals (Boo! Because one of my absolute favourite Pokémon is Zeraora), and NO Mega Evolutions.
2. Only ONE of each type of Pokémon (aka, I wasn’t allowed to pick two electric-type Pokémon, or two fire-type … and if a chosen Pokenon had two elements, I couldn’t pick another with either of those element types etc.)
3. Only ONE Pokémon from an evolutionary line (aka, since I chose Jolteon, I wasn’t allowed to choose Eevee or any other of its evolutions).

And so, with those limitations in place, I made my ultimate choices (and even then, the last couple of picks were tricky).

Here they are: my first-choice Pokémon Team is as follows:

1. Charmander (fire-type)
2. Floregato (grass-type)
3. Jolteon (electric-type)
4. Absol (dark-type)
5. Noivern (flying/ dragon-type)
6. Ninetails (Alolan-variant, ice/ fairy-type)

I was originally going to pick Ninetails (its original fire-type variant), but I’d already picked Charmander, who has been my longest favourite Pokémon, so there was no way I was going to swap him out (but I still love the Alolan Ninetails!).

As for the close runners-up, there were quite a few, enough that I was able to put together my TEAM TWO; those I’d choose if my top team picks were off the table (again applying the same Restriction Rules):

And there you have it—my personal celebratory efforts toward Pokémon’s 30th Anniversary! What wonderful adventures and antics we’ve been able to go on, thanks to this franchise.

May there be many more adventures and antics to come!

SO, fellow trainers, feel free to share your personal top favourite Pokémon teams. I’d love to know! Want to challenge yourself? Add the restrictions I mentioned and see how your teams shift and change.

Also, you can check out my other Pokémon post back on this Eeveelution Blog, where I share more of my Pokémon art, including Eevee and all its amazing evolution variants!

HAPPY 30th ANNIVERSARY!