Clay

"The Underground Boss"
Clay
Species	Human
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Brown
Base	Driftveil City
Relatives	Lian (possible ancestor)
Voiced by	Brad Venable (2019)
Debut	Pokémon: Black/White Versions

Clay is the gym leader of Driftveil City's Pokémon Gym and is the fifth gym leader of the Unova region who is faced within Pokémon: Black and White Versions as well as their sequels. He specializes in Ground-type Pokémon.

Background

Clay was implied to have hailed from humble beginnings, but he made it big and became the most important person in Driftveil City. He owned his own mining company and became known as the Miner King. He also became the gym leader of Driftveil's Pokémon gym due to being a skilled Pokémon trainer. His gym was a giant mine shift filled with elevators, and Clay usually awaited challengers at the very bottom, in order to remind himself of how he himself started off "at the bottom". Clay gave the Quake Badge to those who bested him, but he did not give praise easily. In addition to those activities, Clay saw it as his duty as gym leader to take care of problems that arose around town. He also ran maintenance of the drawbridge that linked Driftveil to Route 5 as well as the ships that passed through the harbor. In addition to that, he owned Twist Mountain, which was located farther north, where he ran a mining operation.

Black/White

In Pokémon: Black and White Versions, Clay caught a group of Team Plasma grunts lead by Zinzolin after they had stolen the Pokémon from various trainers in town. He did not detain them from long, as Elesa then called him to ask him to lower the drawbridge, as she had met some trainers with potential whom she wanted to send his way. Clay lowered the drawbridge for them, but during all this excitement the Team Plasma group got away. When the young trainers Hilbert/Hilda and Cheren arrived, Clay held them responsible for Team Plasma's escape and eventually reached the agreement that Clay would only accept their gym challenge after they found the fugitive Team Plasma members. Hilbert/Hilda and Cheren successfully found them hiding within Cold Storage, and Clay arrived with his posse to round up the defeated Plasma grunts. He brought them back to his gym, but he was then approached by Ghetsis, who came with more Team Plasma grunts. Ghetsis was able to intimidate Clay into releasing Zinzolin's group into his custody.

Clay then returned to his gym and awaited the next challenges. Hilbert/Hilda arrived, and Clay was interested to see what potential Elesa had seen in them. After being defeated, Clay seemed to be under the impression that they were nothing special. He gave them the Quake Badge but would not give them the TM until they did him a favor by meeting him at the entrance to Chargestone Cave. The entrance to the cave had been blocked by a Galvantula's nest, so he used his Krokorok to destroy it. Clay then gave the trainer his favorite TM, TM 78: Bulldoze. He admitted to be uncertain about whether Hilbert/Hilda was a strong trainer, but he advised them that if they thought that they could go wherever they want and do something, that they should do that and decide their own limits. Clay was later defeated by both Cheren and Bianca as well.

Sometime after the Team Plasma incident, a meeting of the gym leaders was held regarding the subject of Team Plasma. They were ready to take action against the team, but the team had been flying under the radar so they decided to wait until Team Plasma made a move to deal with them. Clay later met with Hilbert/Hilda and Cheren again when he was investigating Twist Mountain. Clay told them about the Team Plasma situation and said that they no longer had to worry about Team Plasma. He also advised them to go off the beaten trail in the mountain and to have fun training there. Bianca later called for him when she went around to alert all the gym leaders of N's Castle, which had arisen by the Pokémon League. Clay seemed to lead the group of gym leaders to the castle, and they arrived in time to hold off six of Team Plasma's Seven Sages while Hilbert/Hilda went on ahead to challenge N.

Black/White 2

Clay still ran his gym two years later. This time, he was challenged and defeated by an up-and-coming trainer, Nate/Rosa. They earned the Quake Badge and TM78 with this victory. Afterwards, Clay guided Nate/Rose and Hugh to show them the area of Driftveil City where the Pokémon World Tournament would be held. Cheren, who had become a fellow gym leader, arrived to look at it as well, and Clay was counting on him to show everyone what Pokémon battling means in the absence of Hilbert/Hilda.

He would go on to take part in several different tournaments that were held there: the Driftveil, Unova Leaders, World Leaders and Type Expert divisions. Additionally, a Memory Link flashback could be unlocked which depicted Burgh and Clay visiting Lenora at the Nacrene City Museum. Clay came because had brought a fossil for her. When talking about what fossils mean to them, Clay talked about how amazing it was that bones could outlive humans and make money for them even beyond death, though Lenora suspected that he was joking. The fossil he brought was appraised as being an ordinary fossil and not worth much, so he told Burgh to keep it instead and try to use it for his art.

He also spent a lot of his digging up a tunnel leading from Driftveil City to Twist Mountain, and it was named the Clay Tunnel after him.

Pokémon Roster

In Black and White, he uses the following Pokémon in battle:

• Krokorok
• Palpitoad
• Excadrill

In Black 2, and White 2, he uses the following Pokémon for gym battles:

• Krokorok
• Sandslash
• Excadrill
• Onix (Challenge Mode only)

For battles in the World Tournament, his potential team could include:

• Excadrill
• Claydol (Driftveil/Unova Leaders Tournaments)
• Krokorok (2 in Driftveil Tournament)/Krookodile (in all other divisions)
• Palpitoad (2 in Driftveil Tournament)/Seismitoad (all other divisions)
• Mamoswine (all divisions except Driftveil Tournment)
• Golurk (all divisions except Driftveil Tournament)

In Other Pokémon Games

In Pokémon Masters EX, Clay and his Palpitoad appeared as a playable sync pair and could be recruited at random through the Sync Pair Scout feature. Clay's Palpitoad could evolve into Seismitoad through a Sync Pair Story in which he had a one-on-one battle with Hapu. Clay made occasional appearances in the game's events and played a role in the Story Event "All Aboard the Victory Train", in which Emmet and Ingo met with him to get permission to excavate an area of the mountains that had already been promised to Clay. It turned out that Clay was doing the job for Roark and Steven Stone, to help them find rare rocks and fossils, and they all agreed to let Emmet and Ingo work on their own tunneling plans instead.

Other Appearances

Other Media

• In the Pokémon anime, Clay appeared in several episodes of the Unova series after Ash's arrival in Driftveil City. He at first refused Ash's requests for a battle, initially because he had to check out a mine and later because he did not have any Revival Herbs. Once Ash returned with the Revival Herbs, Clay finally battled him, and Ash was able to defeat him. He was shown to have owned his Excadrill since he was a child, and it helped him to dig out the mine that acted as Driftveil's gym.
• He appeared in the Pokémon Adventures during the Black/White arc, where he was the one who discovered the Dark Stone. In addition to having his gym battle with Black, he and the other gym leaders came together to protect it, only to be captured by Team Plasma until the other trainers worked together to save them later on, at which point they worked together to fight Team Plasma.
• In the Pokémon Generations anime, one episode adapted the battle that Clay and the other Unova gym leaders waged against members of Team Plasma at N's Castle from the climax of Black/White.

Trivia

• His Japanese name is Yaakon, named after the root vegetable yacón and also possibly referencing "kon", a trigram from the 'I Ching' that represents 'earth'. His English name is simply named after "clay", due to it being an earthy mineral.
• Clay has been known to donate the fossils he finds to the Nacrene museum, which is run by fellow gym leader Lenora.
• According to the National Gymquirer, he wears a fluffy knit hat under his cowboy hat.
• In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the character of Lian bears a physical resemblance to Clay and wears a similar hat that bears the same design on it. He was also depicted with skill of mining and extensive knowledge of ores. This seems to imply that he and Clay may be related in some way.