The villains of the Pokémon universe don’t tend to do things by halves. Or subtly. Ever since the devious Team Rocket skulked their way into our lives in Pokémon Red & Blue, there’s been an Evil Team™ on hand to cause chaos in every Pokémon generation to date. If you count Team Yell as an ‘Evil Team,’ that is, which is a bit of a stretch for the Marnie Fan Club.
Alongside the iconic Team Rocket, Team Magma is one of the most notable examples of these shady groups. Their leader Maxie stirs up trouble on a planetary scale in Generation III and VI, but is he powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with the ultimate Pokémon villain, Giovanni himself? Let’s compare them both to see who would win in a battle!
10 Villainous Resumé: Giovanni
Now, as the very figurehead of Pokémon villainy, there isn’t a whole lot to admire about Team Rocket’s Giovanni. What with his scheming, profiteering, and all-around evil vibe, that’s only natural. If there’s one thing we can say for him, though, it’s that he’s certainly got a lot of experience in the crime business.
From turning fellow Kantonian gym leaders to his cause in the Pokémon Adventures manga to assembling a sort of villainous supergroup in Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, it’s clear that he’d stop at absolutely nothing to achieve his goals. This bodes ill for the Team Magma boss, who just hasn’t made the appearances to match Giovanni in this area.
9 Strongest Pokémon: Maxie
Being the primary villains of some Pokémon entries, it’s no surprise that both Giovanni and Maxie have wielded some of the most formidable Pokémon in series history. The former, in the battle at Team Rocket’s Castle in Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, has a Mega Mewtwo on his team (Mega Mewtwo X in Ultra Sun and Mega Mewtwo Y in Ultra Moon, to be precise)! That’s a heck of a Psychic-type powerhouse to have in your back pocket, for sure, but Maxie goes one better.
Team Magma’s leader is also battled in Team Rocket’s Castle in the same game, and what does he have on his team? A dang Groudon, that’s what. It’s even kitted out to take advantage of its Drought Ability, with Solar Beam and Flamethrower, plus Earthquake and the less-than-optimal Ancient Power. Even Giovanni couldn’t wangle a box art legendary for himself.
8 Iconic Status & Intimidation: Giovanni
Now, it’s all well and good to have a gigantic, terrifying, 11’06” lava-Godzilla on your team (which is only Fire-type after Primal Reversion, for Game Freak reasons), but what use is that if you can’t take command of a battle, gain the psychological upper hand by frightening your opponent?
There’s a reason Intimidate is such an excellent Pokémon Ability: it’s an effective tactic. Giovanni just has an aura of malice, a powerful villainous presence that the harmless-looking Maxie simply doesn’t. This is sure to give the Rocket leader an edge too.
7 Strategy: Giovanni
If we’re being entirely honest here, Giovanni’s general success rate with schemes, plots and other synonyms for devious behavior really isn’t the best. He’s returned numerous times across Pokémon media, yes, but only because he made such a mess of things the last time.
Having said that, Maxie has been thwarted multiple times too, and there’s one crucial thing that separates the pair of them in this area: Giovanni always tried to achieve goals within his means. Maxie’s plans (if we can call them that) were poorly thought out at best. Did none of his underlings think to mention that the ocean is… well, pretty darn important? Did he have any clue how to control Groudon once he did unleash it? As we saw in the games, absolutely not. We’d have more faith in Giovanni’s ability to devise a competent battle strategy.
6 Team Competence: Maxie
Speaking of competence, we’ve got to get to the most obvious shortcoming of Team Rocket. The bright, polka-dot elephant in the room: Giovanni’s underlings don’t seem to have two brain cells to rub together between them.
In the anime, the infamous trio of Jessie, James, and Meowth seem to exist only as comic relief, getting themselves into absurd situations and failing miserably before you can say they’re blasting off again. Similarly, in the games, their silly antics with the lift key in the Rocket hideout and suchlike speak volumes about them. If either leader is counting on their team for advice or support in a battle, we think Maxie would get more sense out of his lackeys.
5 Best Pokémon Team(s): Giovanni
Naturally, though, support and advice can only get you so far in a Pokémon battle. In the end, it’s largely about who has the best Pokémon team. As far as that goes, there seems to be a clear winner here too.
Granted, Giovanni’s teams are always heavily (if not entirely) based around Ground-types, as befits his origins as a gym leader. This gives him all the shared weaknesses you’d expect, but in later appearances, he has a range of super powerful Pokémon like Garchomp, Rhyperior, and Hippowdon at his disposal, as well as a wide selection of types (a lot of Gen I’s most powerful critters) in Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon’s Battle Agency. Meanwhile, Maxie barely diverges from his Camerupt/Crobat/Mightyena trio at all. He’d have to do better than that against Giovanni.
4 Movesets: Giovanni
Of course, Pokémon choice itself is only half the battle. You’ve got to know what to do with them too, which is where movesets come in. If you don’t give this factor enough consideration, you might end up with another classic four Fire moves Charizard, which we all thought was the ultimate moveset at the age of ten or so.
All NPC trainers struggle in this area, being largely restricted to a Pokémon’s level-up movesets. Maxie does make effective attempts to construct real movesets at times (as with his Groudon), but in terms of consistency, Giovanni wins out. He has solid STAB moves and coverage aplenty in his later teams, while his Fake Out/Double Edge/Sucker Punch/Earthquake Mega Kangaskhan at the Battle Agency is as close to a real competitive set as it gets.
3 Ambition: Maxie
As we’ve already seen, Maxie didn’t put the most thought into his plan to expand the world’s landmass/have a pet Groudon. One thing that can’t be denied, though, is that it demonstrated ambition. Courage. The boldness to not simply control the world, but want to actually shape it.
Giovanni’s goals were much more realistic and practical by contrast, but they were also small-time. In that respect, Maxie would probably take a ‘bigger picture’ approach to a battle, which could give him an edge in terms of using a victory to shape subsequent matches.
2 Learning From Previous Losses: Maxie
It’s vital for any Pokémon villain to understand the golden rule: an uppity child is going to single-handedly foil your brilliant scheme in the end, regardless of how much smack you talk prior to battling them. In real-life, meanwhile, everyone loses at times in an RNG-laden game like Pokémon.
For Giovanni and Maxie, as with competitive players, learning and recovering from defeats is a paramount to becoming stronger. While the Rocket boss has largely just become more bitter as a result of past losses, Maxie has taken them in his stride. In Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire’s Delta Episode, he makes peace with the player, vowing to create a new, more cooperative Team Magma and even being able to partner with the player in the Battle Maison. Perhaps this healthy perspective on past defeats would give him an edge in a battle against Giovanni.
1 Overall Winner: Giovanni
In the end, we think the infamous Team Rocket leader would prevail over Maxie in a battle between the two. Both have experienced numerous setbacks, but Giovanni has proven himself as an intelligent and resourceful strategist who utilizes a range of powerful Pokémon.
Maxie certainly has some of these traits himself, but he’s newer to the Pokémon scene and we haven’t seen him in action as many times with a complete team. Perhaps, in the future of the series, we’ll see more of what he and his Pokémon are capable of.
NEXT: Pokémon: Every Villainous Team, Ranked According To Strength
