Ash Ketchum has been exploring the world for over 2 decades on his quest to be the very best. Across 8 generations of Pokemon and over 8 different regions, he’s amassed quite the roster of partners, leading to the inevitable question; which were his best?
Pokemon has always been based around collecting. The original Red and Blue/Green games launched with the now-famous tagline, “gotta catch em all”, a phrase many fans still live by to this day. As the star of Pokemon’s anime adaptation, Ash Ketchum has regularly fallen short of this lofty goal, but has been able to catch some pretty impressive Pokemon nonetheless. He’s sported several team combinations over the years, achieving varying amounts of success with each of them. Through analyzing his results and team members, we might be able to figure out which of these teams were his best. So, which are the main contenders?
Kalos
Despite his bad habit of not fully evolving his Pokemon, Ash has been able to field some impressive teams over the years. One of the most memorable is easily his Kalos team, which got him the closest he had ever gotten to a big league title at the time. Many fans thought this team would be the one to finally make him champion, and with good reason.
It sports a full roster of fully evolved Pokemon like Greninja, Talonflame, Goodra, and Noivern. The only exceptions to this are of course the forever unevolved Pikachu and the non-evolving Hawlucha, which is still a Pokemon that can hold its own. Not only does this team sport 2 dragon types(one of the strongest types in Pokemon), but it is further enhanced by Greninja’s unique ability to take on the “Ash-Greninja” form, which rivals the power of a mega evolution.
Alola
Then, there’s the team that did actually make Ash a champion. While the tone of the Alola leg of Ash’s story was too lighthearted for some fans, Pokemon pulled few punches when setting up Ash’s team this time around. The presence of Incineroar and Lycanroc, two powerful, fully evolved Pokemon is impressive enough, but when you factor in the enormous boost provided by the presence of a mythical Pokemon(Melmetal) and an Ultra Beast(Naganadel), it’s no wonder this team was so hard to take down. Even the presence of the unevolved Rowlet was not enough of a handicap to keep this squad down.
Sinnoh
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Until the Kalos team upstaged them, Ash’s Sinnoh team were the ones to get him the furthest, landing him a top 4 finish, and only losing to a team made up of legendary Pokemon. While Buizel, Gible, Staraptor, and Torterra were valuable assets, the real MVP of this team was easily Infernape.
While ‘blaze’ is an ability that normally moderately boosts a Pokemon’s fire type attacks, Ash’s Infernape had an inexplicable variation of this ability that caused its power to ramp up tremendously, in exchange for a loss of control. At one point, Infernape was able to set the entire battlefield ablaze from underground, showing just how destructive it could be when the chips were down.
Journeys
At the time of writing this, Ash’s latest globe-trotting adventure is yet to reach its conclusion. This means we don’t yet know what his latest team will be able to achieve once their time is up, but they are already looking to be big contenders for Ash’s strongest team.
Similar to his Kalos team, this team sports all fully evolved Pokemon, excluding Pikachu and Dracovish who cannot evolve. Players of the Pokemon games will know just how dangerous Dracovish can be, but if that wasn’t enough, the presence of Gengar, Dragonite, Lucario and Sirfetch’d make this team a force to be reckoned with. Not only are these all strong Pokemon, but Lucario and Gengar are able to Mega Evolve and Gigantamax respectively, adding even more power to the lineup.
The Strongest Team
All of Ash’s teams have put in great performances, even the ones not featured here. However, when it comes down to it, the two main contenders are Ash’s Kalos and Journeys teams. Based on only results, his Alola team is the obvious pick, but the opponents they had to face aren’t as impressive, and the team itself isn’t the best balanced. For example, a whopping 5 out of the 6 members are weak to ground types. And while his Sinnoh team is impressive, it relies too much on one star player.
Ultimately, time is on the side of the Kalos team, as we are yet to see if the Journeys team can live up to their potential. Another point in the Kalos team’s favor is that besides only netting Ash 2nd place, the team they lost to was one of the strongest in the anime as a whole. Alain’s team sported not only a Mega Charizard, but also infamously heavy hitters like Tyranitar, Metagross and Weavile. Even considering the strength of each Pokemon from the games, the Kalos team also has the highest stats of all Ash’s teams. So while there is space for disagreement, the Kalos team simply has the most consistent strengths and history.