AUDL Poké-Rankings

Sometimes Power Rankings leave you feeling lost in the tall grass.  UltiWhirled has your back.  Here are the AUDL Poké-Rankings.  For when you gotta’ rank ‘em all!

Each team is assigned an appropriate pocket monster, and teams are ranked accordingly.  Nobody gets to be a legendary (looking at you, Philadelphia Ho-Ohs.  Generations I and II only.

#1—Rochester Dragons (Dragonite)

Type: Dragon/Flying

Description: The unbelievably powerful dragon that will crush (almost) all foes with ease.  Final stage of Dratini.

Verdict: Dragonite is amazing.  He has one of the highest attack scores in the game, and is immune or resistant to several common types.  He does have a quadruple weakness to ice-beam, so you’re boned if you run into one of those, but he can know flamethrower and thunderbolt, so it may not matter anyway.  You’ll wear out your thumbs training to get him (level 55!) but he’s worth it.

#2—Philadelphia Phoenix (Charizard)

Type: Fire/Flying

Description: The badass dragon of flame that has been with you from the beginning.  Final stage of Charmander.

Verdict: She once may have been a tiny, adorable lizard, but now she’s made of pure badass.  Immune to ground and wielding some powerful attacks and great stats, Charizard is going to burn out a lot of her opponents.  The quad-weakness to rock is a little alarming, but rock attacks have fairly low accuracy for the most part, so it doesn’t hurt as much as you’d think.  Major bonus points for being a starter-Pokémon. 

#3—Windy City Wildfire (Rapidash)

Type: Fire

Description: The wild, stunningly beautiful, fiery unicorn.  Evolution of Ponyta.

Verdict: He’s really fast and is a rare non-starter fire Pokémon, who can either stomp on your face or   He doesn’t quite have the stats you’d like for a core monster, but he makes up for it in cool. 
burn you to the ground.

#4—New York Empire (Nidoking)

Type: Poison/Ground

Description: Regal and powerful, the enormous king of all rodents, equipped with a deadly horn. Final stage of Nidoran(m); evolves with moonstone.

Verdict: Nidoking is big, scary, and imperial, and he can be acquired as early as level 16, which earns him huge bonus points.  The ability to crush face with one-shot moves like Horn Drill and near one-shots like Earthquake are great.  But still, the poison type isn’t a great one, so he can’t move up higher on the list.  There are just too many great psychic Pokémon out there. 

#5—Indianapolis Alleycats (Persian)

Type: Normal

Description: Elegant cat with sharp claws and a taste for fine jewelry.  Evolves from Meowth.

Verdict: Persian is basically a lioness, who matures from the gold-adorned cat, Meowth.  Being able to smack a foe and have coins materialize out of thin air is pretty cool, and her stats are decent.  She doesn’t get really good until later generations of the games, when she picks up a couple of neat abilities that make her quite the technician.  Probably not worth a spot on your main-quest Pokémon roster, but she’s a favorite of arch-badguys Team Rocket, so that has to give her some cred as someone to keep an eye on. 

#6—Detroit Mechanix (Magneton)

Type: Electric/Steel

Description: The triple-threat magnet beast that got a whole lot tougher the second time around.  Evolves from Magnemite. 

Verdict: In the first games, Magneton was pretty bad.  A slow electric type?  Lame.  But in the second generation, it picked up the new Steel type, which made it resistant to basically everything except fire- and ground-type attacks (and it was already getting killed by ground anyway).  So Magneton turned out to be pretty decent after all.  Alas, the speed factor is still a problem, so he can’t go any higher than here.  Still, you have to wonder how difficult is to make a decision with three separate brains linked together.

#7—New Jersey Hammerheads (Marowak)

Type: Ground

Description: Wear a goddamn skull for a helmet.  Enough said.

Verdict: You thought we were going to go with some sort of shark on this one, didn’t you?  Well, Marowak fits the Hammerheads just as well.  She’ll smash you in the face with her head and not feel a thing through the skull of a vanquished foe that she wears just for fun.  Also, she has a tendency to haunt memorials, so watch out if she comes down to play in DC. 

#8—Cincinnati Revolution (Smeargle)

Type: Normal

Description: The…um…actually, I’m not really sure how to describe this one. 

Verdict: Smeargle can only do one thing: once every ten levels, he can use the move Sketch to permanently copy a move that was just used against him.  Sounds dumb, sure, and it takes forever to get things right, but you can end up with some otherwise impossible, but really fun combinations.  Spore/Dream-Eater is probably the coolest idea ever.  Anyway, nothing screams ‘Revolution’ more than taking your opponents’ weapons and stealing them for yourself.  Go Smeargle!

Is that an amorphous protrusion in your
 side?  Or are you just happy to see me?

#9—Madison Radicals (Ditto)

Type: Normal

Description: The amorphous blob who reshapes himself to mimic foes. 

Verdict: In combat, Ditto is a useless one-trick pony.  BUT he has the uncanny ability to mate with anything that has genitals (no, seriously, Nintendo put that in the game), so he gets huge bonus points and a big bump up in the rankings for being very useful in breeding baby Pokémon eggs (also a thing).  What could be more Radical than a constantly-changing free-love hippy?

#10—Minnesota Wind Chill (Delibird)

Type: Ice/Flying

Description: What is he?  A chicken?  Whatever, he’s part ice and somewhat Christmas-themed. 

Verdict: Delibird is completely terrible, but he’s the only non-legendary ice-flyer, so in keeping with the rules, instead of Articuno, Minnesota gets Delibird.  Delibird only learns one move: Present, which can either damage or heal the targeted opponent.  On the bright side, he can learn TMs like Ice Beam, and the HM Fly, so he at least has some utility.  By far his best contribution to the gaming universe is his Supermarket-Sweep style Pokémon Stadium minigame.

#11—DC Breeze (Pidgey)

Type: Flying/Normal

Description: Yep.  She’s a pigeon. 

Verdict: Able to conjure a mighty breeze with the move Gust, and maybe throw some sand in your eyes.  But that’s about it.  Only the flying type and the ability to learn Fly make her more useful than the Pokémon who brings up the rear. 

#12—Toronto Rush (Rattata)

Type: Normal

Description: Yep.  He’s a rat. 

Verdict: Look, yes, for about a half hour Rattata is pretty good.  He’s kind of quick and he can do some good damage until you clear Viridian Forest.  His early Quick Attack move is what gets him matched up with the Rush.  But then what?  His stats are bad, he doesn’t have any type advantages, and he doesn’t learn any particularly interesting moves.  He can’t even learn any good out-of-combat moves.  At least a Metapod turns into Butterfree one day.  Rattata just gets fat.  

MLU Poké-Rankings

Sometimes power rankings just don't catch your attention anymore.  UtliWhirled has the solution.  Here are your MLU Poké-Rankings, for when you gotta’ rank ‘em all!

Each team is assigned an appropriate pocket monster, and teams are ranked accordingly.  Nobody gets to be a legendary.  Generations I and II only. 

Jolteon is easily the best Eevolution. 

#1—DC Current (Jolteon)

Type: Electric

Description: The faster-than-thou badass glass cannon that evolves from Evee at the use of a thunderstone. 

Verdict: Seriously, Jolteon is a total BAMF.  He may not be able to take too many hits, and he’ll struggle if he gets matched up against ground types (looking at you, Golem), but he can basically one-shot anything that’s water, flying, or doesn’t have crazy special defense (again, looking at you, Golem, with a Shadow Ball).  He matches up well against most of the Pokémon here, so watch out!  He’s a true ace. 

#2—Boston Whitecaps (Lapras)

Type: Water/Ice

Description: The ancient plesiosaur comes back to rain…well…rain, but also hail and destruction down on its foes. 

Verdict: She’s enormous, adorable, and totally down to give you a ride to and from Cinnabar Island when you need to Missingno Glitch some Master Balls.  She can throw either Surf or Ice Beam and crush.  Outstanding type coverage with great stats (particularly HP and Special Defense) and a formidable foe.  Most importantly, she laughs in the faces of basically all of Lance’s Pokémon, particularly his Dragonites (quad weakness to Ice Beam…lol). 

#3—Seattle Rainmakers (Blastoise)

Type: Water

Description: The powerful hard-shelled starter Pokémon that makes you realize turtles don’t stay cute for long. 

Verdict: Aside from being an awesome water-type that can crush through physical or special attacks, and has some really strong defense, Blastoise gets bonus points for two reasons.  First, he’s the final stage of a starter, so there’s an emotional attachment.  Once you’ve gone through Rock Tunnel with someone, there’s no going back.  Second, he has freaking water cannons sticking out of his back!  Suck it, TMNTs, Blastoise is a hero in a whole shell. 

#4—San Francisco Dogfish (Vaporeon)

Type: Water

Description: The beautiful waterdog that packs quite a punch and evolves from Evee at the use of a waterstone. 

Verdict: Vaporeon is awesome, particularly if you didn’t pick Squirtle as a starter.  Lots of HP and good offensive abilities, and a particularly cool-sounding cry.  The problem is that with both Lapras and Blastoise also on the list, it’s kind of hard to see why you’d ever go with Vaporeon—particularly when you could turn your Evee into the much-cooler Jolteon.  

#5—Philadephia Spinners (Hitmontop)

Type: Fighting

Description: The slightly off-kilter little brother of Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan that can’t seem to keep upright. 

Verdict: He’s definitely the coolest of the pure-fighting Pokémon, and if you’ve ever played Pokémon Stadium II, you know all about his sweet minigame.  Unfortunately, he’s still a fighting-type, which is just kind of lame over-all.  Still, he gets a lot of points just for being so darn silly. 

#6—New York Rumble (Golem)

Type: Ground/Rock

Description: The sturdy boulder-with-limbs that could explode at any moment.  Final stage of Geodude.

Verdict: Golem is really scary-looking, and he has a ton of defense, along with a pretty solid attack-score.  You do not want to be on the wrong end of his Earthquake attack (especially if you’re Jolteon), or his Explosion.  Still, he’s just too slow to crack the top half, particularly with how weak his type matchup is. 

#7—Vancouever Nighthakws (Murkrow)

Type: Dark/Flying

Description: The crafty little bird that always seems to know more than it lets on.

Verdict: Murkrow is cool as an idea (seriously, a dark-energy monster with wings!), but his stats just kind of stink.  He’s the kind of Pokémon that was really missing a second evolution when introduced.  Unfortunately, even when he got it…speed was still an issue.  But at least he turned into a pimp.

#8—Portland Stags (Stantler)

Type: Normal

Description: The odd stag with the hypnotic antlers.  Look at them.  Stare deep into them…

Verdict: Stantler was always one of those kind of interesting Pokémon that you’d never actually use.  He’s got a really fun avatar and a neat set of attacks (hypnosis featuring prominently).  But he just still manages to suck because he’s so weak.  He’s definitely another one that just desperately needed a second stage to become anywhere close to helpful.  Alas, he never got one, so he comes in dead last here.