Best Gen 2 Pokémon starters

Feraligatr wins 65% of its duels and tops the Gen 2 starter form ranking ahead of Totodile.

The Water-type evolutionary line dominates the podium, with Feraligatr at 1348 ELO and its base form Totodile trailing by just 40 points at 1308. Typhlosion breaks the pattern at rank 3 with 1297 ELO, representing the Fire line's strongest showing and winning 63% of its 112 duels. The sharpest divide appears between ranks 4 and 5, where 90 ELO points separate Quilava from Meganium, pushing the Grass starter's final form into the bottom half at 1181 ELO. The ranking's tail reveals a harsh verdict on middle evolutions: Croconaw lands last at rank 9 with 1029 ELO despite belonging to the otherwise favored Water line, winning only 30% of its 98 duels. Chikorita sits just above at rank 8 with 1062 ELO, confirming the Grass starters struggle to connect with voters across all three stages.

This ranking draws from 5112 duels cast by 271 players across 9 contenders, updated on 10 October 2026. The split verdict on evolutionary stages, where base and final forms outpace their middle evolutions in two of three lines, suggests aesthetic preference trumps competitive utility in the Johto generation. Cast your vote to shape how these beloved starters stack up.

Updated on October 10, 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 →