Best Dragon Ball villains

163 ELO points separate Buu from Android 17 in the Dragon Ball villain ranking, while Cell claims the top spot with 1551 points after 4351 duels.

Cell edges out Buu by just 14 points at the summit, a narrow margin that reflects the community's divided loyalty between these two saga antagonists. Both villains dominate the field with win rates above 74%, but the real chasm opens below them. The 163-point gap between Buu and third-placed Android 17 marks the sharpest drop in the entire ranking, suggesting voters draw a clear line between the arc's final bosses and their supporting threats. Android 17 holds off Android 18 by a mere 7 points, while Android 16 rounds out the top 5 at 1259 ELO. At the opposite end, Babidi's Soldiers languish at rank 13 with 666 ELO and a 4% win rate, a harsh verdict on forgettable henchmen in a saga packed with memorable adversaries.

This ranking synthesizes 4351 duels submitted by 143 players across 13 contenders, updated on 12 October 2026. The tight race at the top and the dramatic falloff below the podium reveal how Dragon Ball fans weigh narrative impact against screen time and design. Cast your own vote to settle the debate between perfect evolution and chaotic destruction, or to champion an underdog from the Android and Buu sagas.

Updated on October 12, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →