Finally, it’s time for Gym Leader Milo! Our first gym leader to be taken on as we make our way through Pokemon Sword & Shield. We’re expecting big things from this guy. Well, we’re mainly expecting Grass Types, but if older Pokemon games have taught us anything, it’s that gym leaders alright like to spring a few surprises on you.

Don’t forget to check out our full archive of Pokemon Sword & Shield trainer battles here!

Gym Leader Milo

Location: Turffield Stadium

Well we’re finally here! It certainly seems like we’ve taken on more trainers than usual before reaching the first gym leader, but that just means we get to write more articles, so it’s not all bad! We’re eager to know what he’ll bring out to battle us with – the first gym in a Pokemon game tends to be very easy, but they do like to surprise you with a ‘Mon that you haven’t seen yet..

Pokemon:

GOSSIFLEUR – Grass Type – Level 19

• Weaknesses: Fire, Ice, Bug, Poison and Flying Type.
• Resistances: Grass, Electric, Water and Ground Type.
• Immunity: None.
• Notes: Mid to High Defences, but low speed.

ELDEGOSS – Grass Type – Level 20

• Weaknesses: Psychic, Ice, Fire and Flying Type.
• Resistances: Electric, Fighting, Grass, Water and Fairy Type.
• Immunity: None.
• Notes: Higher special than physical defence.

Guide

Well, the first surprise was that it threw a regular Gossifleur at us in the first round. It’s a relatively high level, however if you’ve gotten this far it will cause you no trouble at all. Of course we pulled out our flying Pokemon to take care of it!

The Eldegoss caused us a bit more trouble. Coming into the battle with no knowledge we weren’t sure what to expect, so we finished off the Gossifleur with our starter in preparation. After having fought so many trainers and written so many articles over the past few months, we’d completely forgotten that Gigantamax was a thing! We were a little paranoid about getting destroyed by an evolved Pokemon at this stage, so we kept our starter out just in case. This worked out well, since he changed the atmosphere and healed us every round too!

We finished him off with physical attacks from our Thwackey. We’ll of course recommend some more direct counters below, but we’d be wary of just how high the defences are on an Eldegoss, and advise that you level up your choice of counter quite a bit just to be safe.

Recommended Pokemon

Rookidee – Flying Type

Location: Wild Area – Rolling Fields

Info: Flying type attacks from this Pokemon too.

Sizzlipede – Bug & Fire Type

Location: Route 3

Info: Fire Type attacks will demolish the grass types, and it takes less damage from them!

Get rekt! Oh wait, we should probably take our cue from Milo and be more gracious in victory… Oh well, that’s the first gym out of the way and we’re eager to get going to a new environment to catch some more new and interesting Pokemon. Before that though, there’s the small matter of our reward…?

REWARDS

• £3,200
• TM10 – Magical Leaf
• Grass Uniform
• The ability to catch Pokemon of up to Lv. 25