Who is Pokemon's smartest villain? (if you're unfamiliar with a few of these, I'll post a bit on their crimes below, so plz read before voting)
Cyrus
Ghetsis
Spinel
Volo
PMD Darkrai
Lovrina
Giovanni (any incarnation)
Lysandre
Sada/Turo
Other-- tell me who! (anime/manga/spinoffs, it can be anyone!)
Lovrina perfected Shadow Pokemon from Ein imo, she was the brain behind the creation of Shadow Lugia, which couldn't be purified by standard means, and improved regular Shadow Pokemon, going by the wider selection of Shadow moves available.
Darkrai was essentially from a timeline where he WON, having sabotaged Temporal Tower and driven Dialga to insanity, leading to a world of darkness that's likely lasted several generations, disguised himself as Cresselia to try and manipulate the player into offing themselves (your existence is said to be causing a temporal distortion that threatens to expand and consume the world--a lie--, so he tries convincing you to disappear), hypnotized Palkia into nearly killing you, and then ambushes you with a bunch of other Pokemon in the final battle against him.
Personally, I'm a bit torn between Cyrus and Spinel. Cyrus totally won against the player in Platinum, we needed divine intervention from Giratina because there wasn't a damn thing we could do to stop him there, I feel he's the villain who actually came closest, since you at least had the opportunity to fight back against Ghetsis and Volo.
Spinel introduced himself by ambushing Friede to gauge his power (never letting Friede see his face since he was ordering his Pokemon remotely), running interference on the RVT communications and leading Liko off alone to mindwipe her and steal her pendant (and also ran a disinformation campaign online while the RVT were looking for her to slow them down while he tried to make his getaway), had Gibeon wrapped around his finger to the point Gibeon was unwilling to hear out his own grandson (who Spinel had tried to murder) when Spinel had framed him for betrayal, took command of the Explorers after Gibeon's passing and forcing the Tacklers to run after he used the Strong Spheres to drive the Heroes berserk (I feel it's implied that he's developed other technology for the Explorers too), framed the RVT for the destruction of Laqua, leading them to disband for a year (and again now for the theft of the Heroes, now the public knows who these kids are too), and actively tried to eliminate potential loose ends like Amethio. I feel he has the most legitimate public image too aside from Lysandre, Plasma and Galactic feel more like cults in comparison. Exceed and the Explorers are heroes who just wanted to protect Pokemon and stop those terroristic RVT people, honest!
