While many Pokémon fans wish that Ash had evolved his Pikachu at some point in the series, there are plenty of other Pokémon that Ash would have evolved a lot better than Pikachu and the one at the top of the list was the latecomer on the team. His sinnoh: Gible.
Ash has a tendency to let his Pokémon decide if they want to evolve, which has resulted in many of them such as Pikachu never evolving, instead remaining in their basic form. This often results in Ash being one of the only trainers in competitions using unevolved Pokémon, putting him at a slight disadvantage against his opponents. This has never been more apparent than during the Sinnoh Alliance’s Lily of the Valley Conference, where Ash battles his unresolved Gible, which he only caught about thirty episodes before the tournament. Gible performed quite well in his battles in the tournament but was quickly defeated when Ash took on one of his most unfair opponents ever, Tobias.
Ash’s Gible evolution may have helped him win the Sinnoh Alliance
Ash usually takes quite a while to get a Pokémon to evolve, so getting Gible just thirty episodes before the tournament puts it in an evolutionary quandary. Much of that time is spent helping Gible master its Draco Meteor attack, which for some reason never seems to land on target, instead hitting Dawn’s poor Piplup. Unlike Pikachu, Gible isn’t inherently opposed to the idea of evolution and it actually looks like it might be interested in the idea. If Ash had had more time with Gible, he could have entered the tournament with Garchomp, one of the most powerful Pokémon in existence at the time, a fact crucial to his success. .
Garchomp is known as a “pseudo-legendary” Pokémon, a type of Pokémon that is close to legendary when fully evolved and is usually quite rare. The hard part, especially in the anime, is just getting the Gible. If Ash and Gible train hard and develop it, then joining the tournament with Garchomp at his disposal will put Ash in a much better position. For instance, Garchomp was able to wage a much larger war against Tobias’ Darkrai. What’s more remarkable is that by the end of the series, Gible is Ash’s only Dragon-type Pokémon that doesn’t fully evolve, unlike Goodra, Noivern, and Dragonite.
Giving Ash a fully evolved Garchomp will also add an interesting element to his final match with Cynthia in the Masters’ Eight tournament, as her trump Pokémon is also a Garchomp. Some action Garchomp vs. Good old Garchomp will be a battle, especially when a lot of conversion happens in that fight. Garchomp also has the advantage of having the Mega Evolution ability, adding another layer of concealment about what Ash’s secret weapon really is. Unfortunately, Gible never got a chance to evolve, mainly because it was discovered too late in the series, and so Pokémon fans have never seen Ash fight a fan favorite like Garchomp.