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Every Single Starter Pokémon Ranked: What's your tier list like?
- Thread starter bdt2002
- Start date
I don't think I'd have anything lower than C though it's mostly as I never rate middle forms. I do love Meganium...A tier for me. Least favorite is the Oshawott Line and I'd still rank it C.
Opted to rank the first, second, and third stage evolutions separately since the ranking gets to be a lot otherwise. Lists and explanations under the hide tags.
Disclaimer #1: I haven't played Shield yet (just got to Route 1) so I'm basing gen8 on looks/experience on PS. Rest are a mixture of "experience" and looks.
Disclaimer #2: If you can't tell from my rankings, I grew up on Pokemon Gold & the GBA games, so I'm totally biased.
I generally like all the first stage starters. Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Mudkip separate themselves from the rest, easy SMUG tier. The Kanto Trio get kind of special treatment, but I enjoy using all three of them roughly equally when I replay Firered/Leafgreen. Maybe Bulbasaur a bit more, but its not Chikorita tier. LIKE has a lot of them, so I'll just say so long as I looked at the starter and thought "oh that's cute" I rolled with it. Honestly, Oshawott should go in Like, but I'm not a huge fan of Fennekin or Scorbunny. So they're meh.
Now I start having stronger opinions. Bayleef and Marshtomp stick around in SMUG because I like them a lot; Ivysaur is my favorite of all 9 Kanto Starter forms so it gets to be here too. Moving to Love, Grovyle looks so cool, Quilladin looks so dopey, and Quilava is solid but not nearly as good as Cyndaquil.
Moving onto Like, Charmeleon, Wartortle, Crocanaw, and Grotle are good "next steps" from their pre-evolutions, but they don't have that oomph that the others have. I'm not crazy about them like I am SMUG, but all solid entries.
Meh elicit no emotional response from me, and I'm super neutral about them. Dislike on the other hand, I'm slightly negative towards. I generally don't like the Gen5 starters, same goes for Braxien and Brionne. Dartrix isn't really an offender, I just didn't like looking at it. Raboot I don't like because its just a rabbit with a headband wearing a turtleneck and pants.
Meganium and Swampert are my favorite final evolutions of the starters; the gap between them and the next ones is so wide that they get their own tier (and own paragraph).
Typhlosion is next, and Torterra realistically could be in Like but recency bias from BDSP puts it in Love. The Kanto Trio are once again solidly placed; the difference between Like and Love here is kind of blurred. However Chesnaught and Greninja are definitely "Like," they're cool but not Typhlosion or the Kanto Trio to me.
Meh is just final forms that are there. I've spent years trying to see what it is about Feraligatr that makes me so neutral about it, and I think its the eyes. Otherwise it joins the Kanto starters. Rest of them I'm really neutral about; Delphox is definitely a step up from Braxien but its really eh.
Sceptile is in Dislike because it takes such a cool design that is Grovyle and ruins it. Also, if it wasn't apparent by now, I don't really like the Unova trio. Incineroar and Primarina are forms I generally dislike; when I played Ultra Sun I picked Decidueye by default. Same goes for Rillaboom vs Cinderace and Inteleon; Cinderace is wearing clothes and Inteleons hands look too large/humanlike.
Disclaimer #1: I haven't played Shield yet (just got to Route 1) so I'm basing gen8 on looks/experience on PS. Rest are a mixture of "experience" and looks.
Disclaimer #2: If you can't tell from my rankings, I grew up on Pokemon Gold & the GBA games, so I'm totally biased.
I generally like all the first stage starters. Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Mudkip separate themselves from the rest, easy SMUG tier. The Kanto Trio get kind of special treatment, but I enjoy using all three of them roughly equally when I replay Firered/Leafgreen. Maybe Bulbasaur a bit more, but its not Chikorita tier. LIKE has a lot of them, so I'll just say so long as I looked at the starter and thought "oh that's cute" I rolled with it. Honestly, Oshawott should go in Like, but I'm not a huge fan of Fennekin or Scorbunny. So they're meh.
Now I start having stronger opinions. Bayleef and Marshtomp stick around in SMUG because I like them a lot; Ivysaur is my favorite of all 9 Kanto Starter forms so it gets to be here too. Moving to Love, Grovyle looks so cool, Quilladin looks so dopey, and Quilava is solid but not nearly as good as Cyndaquil.
Moving onto Like, Charmeleon, Wartortle, Crocanaw, and Grotle are good "next steps" from their pre-evolutions, but they don't have that oomph that the others have. I'm not crazy about them like I am SMUG, but all solid entries.
Meh elicit no emotional response from me, and I'm super neutral about them. Dislike on the other hand, I'm slightly negative towards. I generally don't like the Gen5 starters, same goes for Braxien and Brionne. Dartrix isn't really an offender, I just didn't like looking at it. Raboot I don't like because its just a rabbit with a headband wearing a turtleneck and pants.
Meganium and Swampert are my favorite final evolutions of the starters; the gap between them and the next ones is so wide that they get their own tier (and own paragraph).
Typhlosion is next, and Torterra realistically could be in Like but recency bias from BDSP puts it in Love. The Kanto Trio are once again solidly placed; the difference between Like and Love here is kind of blurred. However Chesnaught and Greninja are definitely "Like," they're cool but not Typhlosion or the Kanto Trio to me.
Meh is just final forms that are there. I've spent years trying to see what it is about Feraligatr that makes me so neutral about it, and I think its the eyes. Otherwise it joins the Kanto starters. Rest of them I'm really neutral about; Delphox is definitely a step up from Braxien but its really eh.
Sceptile is in Dislike because it takes such a cool design that is Grovyle and ruins it. Also, if it wasn't apparent by now, I don't really like the Unova trio. Incineroar and Primarina are forms I generally dislike; when I played Ultra Sun I picked Decidueye by default. Same goes for Rillaboom vs Cinderace and Inteleon; Cinderace is wearing clothes and Inteleons hands look too large/humanlike.
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And remember everyone, there is no wrong answe...
But joking aside.
Yeah, pretty much this is where I'm at. I don't really hate any of the Starters, maybe some of the mid stages need some more time in the development oven, but overall since the Starters are a group of Pokemon that GF heavily focus on making good, well, of course they're going to come out at least appealing if at least in one stage.
The final and ultimate list. Gen 1 and Gen 6 represent hard.
Here's my list
What tier list design did you use for this? I noticed you had some stuff my link didn’t like the G-Max forms and the new trio from Gen 9.
I just used the base stage starters to represent each line, because otherwise it'd be very cramped and honestly this works a lot better! This is based more on aesthetics and personal usage than anything else, rather than competitive viability.
There are a lot of starters I like, but I'm not sure if there are any that I downright dislike.
Noticed that this template doesn't feature Pikachu or Eevee. I'd place Pikachu in C and Eevee in B.
Did a new list with Meme Guy 924's provided format, but with some... interesting tier names. Main difference for this one is that I did first stage Pokémon only, with no Pikachu or Eevee present either.
Attachments
I agree with the Sprigatito tier lol
thank you for putting chikorita evo line at f. i just dont like chikorita
There are a lot of starters I like, but I'm not sure if there are any that I downright dislike.
Noticed that this template doesn't feature Pikachu or Eevee. I'd place Pikachu in C and Eevee in B.
I have been told multiple times that my starter opinions are what some would refer to as a "hot take". Individual tiers are in no particular order.
