Best shiny Gen 1 Pokémon

30 ELO points separate Gyarados from Ninetales at the top of the Gen 1 shiny Pokémon ranking, after 22382 duels.

Gyarados claims the crown with 1503 ELO points, edging out Ninetales by 30 points in what marks the sharpest gap among the top contenders. Ninetales sits at 1473 ELO, while Charizard trails at 1456 ELO in third position. The podium reflects a preference for vibrant color swaps: Gyarados trades blue for red, Ninetales shifts from orange to silver, and Charizard goes black. Dragonair and Rapidash round out the top 5 with 1444 and 1428 ELO respectively. At the opposite end, Mankey languishes at rank 151 with just 949 ELO, winning 29% of its 148 duels. Persian fares little better at 965 ELO despite facing 291 duels, while Weepinbell holds rank 149 with 996 ELO. The bottom rankings suggest that subtle or muddy palette changes fail to resonate with voters.

This ranking draws from 22382 duels cast by 47 players across 151 contenders, updated on 11 October 2026. The community has spoken through thousands of head-to-head matchups, weighing the merits of each shiny variant's color scheme against the rest of the first generation roster. Cast your own vote and shape the results.

Updated on October 11, 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 →