Matt: the Team Aqua Admin Who Lives Only for Archie

He obeys, and he obeys to the point of absurdity. Matt is one of Team Aqua's Admins, the one Archie sends along the Hoenn coast whenever an operation calls for fists rather than speeches. Depending on the cartridge, he is either a figure you run into twice or the organization's most persistent opponent — and in the Delta Episode, he becomes something else entirely.

Contents

• A Field Admin, Not Just Another Grunt
• A Role That Changes Completely from One Version to the Next
• Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A New Look, a Bigger Role
• The Delta Episode, or the Loyal Follower Who Goes Off the Rails
• A Team of Predators, Not Guardians
• Beyond the Games: a Short Film, a Manga, a Card
• Matt at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Field Admin, Not Just Another Grunt

Matt belongs to Team Aqua's circle of Admins, the rank that sits between the anonymous grunts and the organization's leader. He carries out Archie's decisions in the field, anywhere in Hoenn the organization is preparing its next move.

Facing the player, he makes a big deal of this difference in rank: he presents himself as a notch above the grunts you've already met and swears he won't falter. The remakes even have him claim the title of the boss's right-hand man.

There's nothing lukewarm about his loyalty. He says he would give his life for Archie, speaks of him as a big brother, and puts his boss's goal far above his own defeat — once beaten, his first thought goes to the boss, never to the battle he just lost.

A Role That Changes Completely from One Version to the Next

From one cartridge to the next, Matt doesn't carry the same narrative weight. In Ruby, he only shows up twice, at Meteor Falls and then at the Seafloor Cavern, without ever affecting how the story unfolds.

In Sapphire and Emerald, by contrast, he becomes a recurring obstacle: every time the player thwarts Team Aqua's plans, Matt gets in the way. In Sapphire, the first battle takes place on Mt. Chimney and the next in the Lilycove City hideout; in Emerald, where Mt. Chimney is Team Magma's turf, only the hideout leads to a battle.

That hideout is his big moment. He holds the player back while Archie escapes aboard the submarine stolen in Slateport City: he loses the battle but buys the time he was asked to buy. A good sport, he then lets slip his boss's destination, an undersea cavern off the coast of Lilycove City.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: A New Look, a Bigger Role

The remakes Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire redesign him from the ground up — his look has little left in common with the one from the original versions — and give him far more scenes.

The first encounter takes place on Southern Island, in a double battle: Matt and a grunt against the player, backed up by Steven Stone. The goal is spelled out plainly, capturing Latias in Alpha Sapphire — Latios in Omega Ruby — and taking its Mega Stone, since Team Aqua considers the power of Mega Evolution essential to its plan.

The rematches then come one after another, on Mt. Pyre and then at the hideout. There, the organization's boat has been fitted with a drill: the seal on the Seafloor Cavern isn't expected to hold out against it for more than three seconds, and Archie is already inside.

The Delta Episode, or the Loyal Follower Who Goes Off the Rails

The Delta Episode shows him left to his own devices. His boss has turned his back on his ambitions, and Matt takes this about-face as a personal betrayal: everything the two men had built has just been written off as hot air by Archie himself.

So he acts alone. In Petalburg City, he hounds Wally to wrest his Key Stone from him, which the boy hasn't had since it went missing from his home, before heading to the Mossdeep Space Center, where Steven Stone is waiting for him.

There, his rhetoric takes a dark turn: he compares the energy locked inside the rocket to the weapon that ended the war three thousand years earlier, and announces that with the Key Stone found at Meteor Falls he will blow everything up and complete Project AZOTH himself. Once defeated, he is promptly stripped of the dimensional shifter and then of the Key Stone by Zinnia — and what he shouts then is that someone has stolen Archie's Key Stone.

A Team of Predators, Not Guardians

Five species make up his roster, and they say the same thing the character does. Carvanha and Sharpedo form its marine core: two Water- and Dark-type predators, one tiny and vicious, the other built for speed.

The land side follows the same line with Poochyena and Mightyena, the Dark-type hyena line. The whole lineup is built to strike first, never to withstand a siege.

Golbat is the odd one out, the only member of the pack that isn't Dark-type. Four Pokémon out of five share that type, which gives the team a very clear identity for an Admin who is supposed to be fighting for the ocean's cause.

🦈 The predators of the sea have their own section: check out the Pokémon figures.

Beyond the Games: a Short Film, a Manga, a Card

On screen, his whole role fits into the eighth episode of Pokémon Generations. Surrounded by grunts, he contacts Archie to describe the devastation Kyogre's awakening has caused on the surface. As for the cards, his debut goes back to the Double Crisis expansion, released in France on August 22, 2015.

The manga gives him much more to do. There, he forms a trio of Admins with Shelly and Amber, and it's his part in the attempt to kidnap Mr. Stone that earns him his rank.

What follows is a string of defeats. He tries to take out Flannery and Sapphire on Mt. Chimney but falls to the latter, then reappears one last time against the Gym Leaders during Kyogre's awakening, where Winona brings him down. What becomes of him afterward is never revealed.

Matt at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Matt in Pokémon?
  One of the Admins of Team Aqua, the organization led by Archie in the Hoenn region. He runs field operations along the coast and stands in the player's way several times.
• Does Matt play the same role in every version?
  No. In Ruby, he only appears twice, at Meteor Falls and at the Seafloor Cavern, without affecting the story. In Sapphire and Emerald, he blocks the player's path every time they thwart Team Aqua.
• Which Pokémon does Matt use?
  Carvanha, Sharpedo, Poochyena, Mightyena and Golbat. Four of them are Dark-type, which makes for a fast, aggressive team rather than one built for endurance.
• What does Matt do in the Delta Episode?
  He acts without his boss: he tries to take Wally's Key Stone in Petalburg City, then announces at the Mossdeep Space Center that he will unleash the rocket's energy and complete Project AZOTH himself. Once defeated, he has the Key Stone taken from him by Zinnia.
• Does Matt appear in the anime?
  Just once, in the eighth episode of Pokémon Generations, where he contacts Archie to describe the state of the surface after Kyogre's awakening.

In short

Matt has no personal ambition, and that's exactly what makes him interesting: his entire trajectory is set by Archie's. As long as the boss believes in it, he is just a noisy obstacle to get around between two hideouts. The day the boss gives up, he picks up the abandoned project and threatens to see it through all by himself. Few of the series' underlings become more dangerous when their boss walks away.