Few trainers love Starter Pokemon as much as Ash Ketchum, who is emblematic of every friend you had in elementary school who needed every region's Starters on their team. He catches plenty of wild Pokemon too, but his Starters have almost always been the strongest a🐼nd most iconic members of his team from his start ♓in Kanto to his days in Alola (so far, no Starters on his team in Journeys, besides Pikachu).
Not every single Starter has been a powerhouse of his team, though, and there are a surprising number of Starters in Ash's collection that are not huge contributors to his passion as an aspiring battler. For every powerful competitive staple Starter he adds to his team, there's another♏ Ash Starter that gets by on its cuteness instead.
15 Rowlet
It's important to make 🐠clear that being the weakest of Ash's starters isn't a detriment to Rowlet as a character of the show. Rowlet is adorable and lovely, and even if it's not necessarily chosen by Ash as a battle partner, it's still a great member of his team regardless.
That said, it's hard to justify putting Rowlet ahead of any other Pokemon in this list. It just doesn't have the battle prowess due to its unevolved state, and lacks a wide enough variety of unique 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Flying-type moves that make it fairly forgettable c🌺ompared to Ash's other battle-ready starters.
14 Snivy
While it certainly has more proficiency as a battler than Rowlet, Ash's Snivy from Unova is almost equally pathetic in ✨its ability to fight. It mostly existed as a parallel to Ash's rival Trip, who also started with a Snivy that would evolve to a more mighty Serperior.
This doesn't mean Ash's Snivy needed to evolve, but it certainly needed at least a f🧸ew new moves. It only ever had four moves, three being Grass-type and one being a more variable status move of Attract, and that results in the least range of nearly any of Ash's teammates in general.
13 Totodile
Totodile is absolutely strong and talented, being one of the first Pokemon of Ash's to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:learn a Dark-type move and having a great mix of ofꦡfense and defense. Unfortunately, this Pokemon often was more of a comic relief character than a battler, and with primarily Normal-type moves it really underperformed in most of its battles.
Totodile is also extremely underwhelming compared to Ash's other Water-type Starters, having one Water-type move in the form of Water Gun that doesn't get used in too many unusual ways. It's miles ahead of Snivy, but quiteಞ far back compared to every other option.
12 Squirtle
It's impossible to stress just how impressive Ash's Squirtle is, both before and after 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:joining the Squirtle Squad ඣand donning some cool sunglasses. Unlike Totodile, Squirtle learns plenty of status moves and Water-type moves that result in far more range, with attacks like Bubble Beam and Rapid Spin leading tཧo tricky maneuvers.
Thankfully, it also learns some absurdly powerful moves too, like Hydro Pump and Skull Bash. These moves are normally reserved for Blas🍸toise, but seeing Ash's Squirtle with enough strength to match this strength makes it an all-star Starter, and the first really great one in Ash's colle๊ction.
11 Bulbasaur
Bulbasaur is essentially everything that Snivy could have been. It has a much wider set of moves including 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:an impossible Dig attack, and tons of more versatile statu🐼s moves liꦇke Leech Seed and Sleep Powder to give it a huge advantage in fights against stronger opponents.
M🔜uch of Bulbasaur's power doesn🐬't come from the Pokemon itself, though, as Ash is an expert in finding creative ways to use each of its moves in odd combinations and style, proving just how great a trainer Ash can be with a compatible Pokemon.
10 Quilava
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyndaquil, Quilava, and Typhlosion have always gotten ver🦩y little in terms of support through b🌠oth the Pokemon games and anime, rarely gaining any moves outside of Fire-type attacks and having some debatable stats. Ash's Quilava suffers from some similar problems, but oddly enough it's much more powerful than it is in most other contexts.
Ash gets the fullest extent of its power, acting as a fast and sneꦯaky Fire-type instead of the monsters that fight more with theiꦍr size. This, alongside some moves like Aerial Ace and Eruption, give it a unique degree of effectiveness that makes it a good middle-ground among the power level of Ash's Starters.
9 Pignite
Despite catching some in his recent adventures with Goh in the Pokemon Journeys anime, Ash has a surprisingly low number of Fighting-type Pokemon in his collection. He certainly has a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:fondness for Fire-type starters in most ꦆregions, but Pignite is definitely a more powerful option thanks to this secondary typing giving it a great boost.
The one problem is that it doesn'ꩵt get much in the way of moves with this unique combination, only gaining Brick Break and otherwise sticking to Fire-type moves. It definitely stands out more than Quilava, but not by much.
8 Bayleef
Simply put, Bayleef is a Bulbasaur with slightly more bulk on it. Th🌸is isn't bad at𒁃 all, as clearly Bulbasaur was able to do some impressive things, and Bayleef can do even more with powerful vines to lift it up and aid in using powerful Normal-type attacks like Headbutt and Body Slam.
It might seem more b🤪oring than B🌱ulbasaur in most cases thanks to a low variety of status moves, but Bayleef's raw power generally just exceeds Bulbasaur on most fronts. If it were to have evolved into Meganium, it may have gotten even more opportunities to shine way brighter.
7 💃 ♊ Incineroar
Competitive staple and Dark-type starter Incineroar is an odd inclusion in Ash's team, because it's mostly a Torracat throughout most of the Sun & Moon anime. It 🌃only really evolves during Ash's final battles of the Alola league, ๊and while it's fairly powerful in this state, we don't really get to see enough of its true power.
That said, we know Incineroar's power thanks to its presence in the games, where it's both a powerful physical beater and an effective supporter in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Double Battle formats. It'd be great to see it embrace its Dark-ty❀pe traits more, but in terms of objective power it's definitely higher up than many of Ash's ꧙other Starters.
6 Sceptile
Sceptile isn't going to win awards for its uniqueness. It has a similar moveset to Bayleef and that movest is limited, similar to Snivy, but somehow it's managed to d൲o so much more with so little, leading to an astonishing number o💮f victories.
The greatest success is undoubtedly in Ash's semi-final battle against Tobias's Darkrai, where Sceptile managed to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:finally defeat Darkrai after two of Ash's Pokemon before had failed. This made it the only Pokemon to defeat Darkrai in the entire Lily of the Valley Conference, proving that this might be alarmingly more powerful than Ash's other Start🗹ers.