Despite Incineroar’s appearance as a big, buff tiger wrestler, it is most notorious in the Pokémon competitive scene for its bothersome support moves rather than for being a heavy hitter. Its skill at disrupting plays and weakening enemies has made it a cornerstone of ranked play in Pokémon Champions. Now a game-breaking bug has made the fire/dark-type monster even more troublesome, and the situation could get much worse if the game doesn’t fix it soon.
In Pokémon games, some moves allow you to switch monsters out of battle with an added effect, as opposed to simply swapping them with a benched teammate and wasting a turn without doing damage or affecting the battle in some way. Incineroar has an attack called Parting Shot, which allows it to switch out with another Pokémon after lowering a target’s attack and special attack stats. Typically, moves like Parting Shot only allow you to swap in a Pokémon other than the user, but Champions players have run into a glitch that lets them send out a Pokémon who uses the same pivot move to exit the battle.
I did some testing of the "send yourself back in after pivot move timeout" glitch myself and I could reproduce it after the maintenance that occurred today. This is a pretty major bug if the exploit conditions are available to the player. pic.twitter.com/Mcp5bSR62S
— Leonard Craft III (@DaWoblefet) July 8, 2026
Why would you do this if the whole point of these moves is to allow a Pokémon to retreat to their Poké Ball? Well, in Incinerorar’s case, its Intimidate passive ability lowers its opponent’s attack stat every time it switches back into battle. In theory, Incineroar could lower its foe’s attack stat three times in one turn with this exploit between its initial Intimidate, Parting Shot, and the second Intimidate that follows when it returns back to the field.
@skrawcaw Pokémon Champions just BROKE #pokemon #competitivepokemon #pokemonchampions #vgc #videogames
Intimidate is already one of the best abilities in Pokémon because it starts any battle off with your enemies on their back foot. This pivot move bug just lets Incineroar triple down on it in one turn. Hopefully the bug gets patched out soon. Otherwise, I’ll be leading every match against an Inicineroar user with my Mirror Armor Corviknight, who sends stat debuffs back at the user.
