How would you rank all of the shows leagues (gens 1-7) in terms of "prestige"?

[TheCrazyMaster]

From league qualifications to league conferences how would you rank each league (including the Orange League) from best to worst? How would you rank the qualification methods? If there were gym leaders, which ones were the most powerful? How fairly did they treat challengers and pokemon? If there were other ways to enter the league, how fair were said qualifications? If there were any, which league conferences had the most powerful/skilled participants? Were any of them gym leader tier or E4 tier etc etc? I know that one might be a little harder to answer considering we don't always get to see all the battles.

Please do not base your ranking based off of which league you liked/hated the most, use this as an excuse to trash/praise you favorite series, or base your decision off of Ash's ranking in each league conference.

 

[mehmeh1]

(I'm not counting Ash vs Kukui for Alola, btw)
Qualifications: Kalos>Sinnoh>Johto=Hoenn>Unova>Kanto>>>>>>>>>Orange>>>>>>>>>>>>>Alola
Average Trainer quality: Kalos>Sinnoh>Johto=Hoenn>Alola=Unova>Kanto (well, we know nothing about the better Kanto trainers, so IDK about this one) (not counting Orange here because they're only 2 trainers, lol)
Maximum Trainer quality: Kalos>Sinnoh>Alola=Hoenn>Johto>Unova (we don't know about the best Kanto trainer, and again, Orange only had 2 trainers)
Scale of the event: Hoenn>Kanto>Johto>Kalos>Sinnoh>Alola>Unova

 

[Leonhart]

The Shinou League was the best in terms of how intense it was and how the flow of battles was handled, although the Kalos League is also up there with the best because of the setting it took place in and the stadium's design. I'd say that the Alola League had the worst structure out of all the Leagues so far since it had no real entry prerequisites for participants.

 

[UltimateNinja]

Liked Sinnoh the most. Flint and the other E4 appearing + Cynthia and her battle with them just felt like the league was truly a force you shouldn't underestimate.

Hoenn, Johto, Kanto and Kalos are second. If it wasn't for some of the gym leaders and that messy league, then Unova would've been second as well. Last one is Alola for obvious reasons.

 

[Leonhart]

Liked Sinnoh the most. Flint and the other E4 appearing + Cynthia and her battle with them just felt like the league was truly a force you shouldn't underestimate.

I liked the fact that Shirona was actually at the Shinou League stadium and that she watched the battles unfold, because she was the first Champion that we saw doing that. It seemed right for her to be there to crown the next Shinou League winner.

 

[Zoruagible]

Sinnoh tops all. All of Ash's major battles par Tobias were against characters we all knew and didn't feel forced like SM did with it's no requirements, Conway, Nando, and Paul all earned their way there and put up an enjoyable battle too. It was really the only region where Ash having a dozen rivals actually worked cause Nando and Conway were more of a friend(And acquaintance in Conway's case lol). It was also Mr. Goodshow's last appearance(RIP :/ ) and Cynthia was also there, probably curbstomped Tobias shortly after he got his trophy

AG and Johto tie for second.
Alola is dead last..... jk, Kalos is. Took away from the entire premise of Ash growing stronger to overcome his rival

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Sinnoh league was best. C'mon let's not deny that. It had good battles, a focused narrative and good story
Second for me is Johto and Alola TIED. Johto coz it had great battles and it had a great structure, having preliminaries and not all matches being knockout. Storywise I consider it poor however since ash Gary rivalry was always poor, and their battle could have been written so much better.
Alola had an amazing story since it had stories for a lot of the people participating, multiple story arcs culminating here, and ofc ending with the best battle, ash vs Kukui (yes it counts as it's part of the league arc). It's structure of not having six vs six pisses people and understandably but considering they couldn't have been able to show all the story they wanted to if they did it, not a problem for me. We got 4 episodes of a six on six anyways same as many other series. The complaint of no entry requirement is not valid In my eyes considering only the people who completed the island challenge made it to the top anyways, there was a battle royal and it allowed them to have multiple stories. Also I love how they showed all the matches and gave 17 episodes.

3rd is Indigo league
It had all the hype for a league, and it was nice to see Ash's all pokemon being there. Ash losing makes sense, but it's execution sucked. Charizard being the cause of his downfall was great, but a Pokemon being knocked out coz it was sleeping is bs

4th is AG and XY tied
XY made no sense story wise, and they rushed the whole tournament. It's major flaw was that it wasn't the main arc for the ending, that role given to TF (which should have been done in BW). So while we got an amazing TF arc , we got a stupid league arc. The battles were delightful to watch (specifically two). But it had its flaw of focusing on only one Pokemon (GRENINJA)
As for AG I HATE how ash loses to a meowth puss in boots. Stupid. I hated how the ash vs Morrison battle went. Ash vs Katie was cool.

Last place : BW. No need to explain

 

[Epicocity]

You guys realize that this isn't about the League story, right? It's about League prestige, from min/average/max level of trainers to the difficulty in reaching the League, not how much you liked it or who Ash fought or what Pokemon there were.

That said...

Sinnoh = Kalos > Hoenn > Johto = Kanto* > Unova > Alola

Sinnoh and Kalos easily fit as the greatest prestige. Each Gym was a genuine challenge even for a veteran Ash and Kalos was the first time we had it pointed out there were people who failed to get enough badges, meaning only 64 trainers even managed to get to the League, though barring Alain and Ash, the Sinnoh League I would argue seemed to have a higher level of competitors. But all its Gyms were stellar, too.

Hoenn was a step down from that, but needing to fight a huge number of full battles covers the weakness it would otherwise have from the Gym challenge being merely all right.

Johto had a decent Gym challenge and decent trainers, but I still doubt trainers like Macy or Harrison could ever contend with the likes of Paul, Tobias or Alain. Kanto is in the same slot because it felt like it was the be-all-end-all event, there was a lot more work to get into the main tournament, but...we don't know much because Ash was still knocked out in the Top 16.

Unova was...all right as a League, I guess? Nothing that spoke to particular strengths. And the Gym challenge to get there was...well, 6v3 says it all.

Alola is dead last because there were no requirements. We can speculate about trainer strength every day of the week, but since there was no standardized method of gaining entry to the League, even with the oneshot fest that was the battle royale, it's impossible to judge where anybody's strength lies. Even the trials given how radically different each one was, including interference in one of them. The fact a trainer could get into the Top 16 by doing nothing is a huge blemish on its prestige.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Johto > Sinnoh = Hoenn = Kalos = Unova > Kanto > Orange League > Alola

Johto because it got interesting ways for matches.

The rest is just basic.

Can you believe those crazy Kantonians hand pity badges?

OL is very gimmicky, especially the weird Herculean Dragonite with 10 moves or so.

And there's the mess that is Alola, which cares not for any previous effort you may have done since there's no requirement at all to even enter, which is also extremely lazy. (I also do not count Kukui's battle, which wouldn't help since it's got absolutely no stakes to win or lose anyway.)

 

[Red and Blue]

If you wanted to give an entry requirement for the Alolan League maybe let in only trainers who have earned a Z ring. Though if they did that then Guzma and his Skull grunts wouldnt have been able to enter, lol

 

[Leonhart]

If you wanted to give an entry requirement for the Alolan League maybe let in only trainers who have earned a Z ring. Though if they did that then Guzma and his Skull grunts wouldnt have been able to enter, lol

Considering that I wasn't much of a fan of Guzma's League battle with Satoshi, or his story-line overall during the SM saga, I wouldn't have had a problem if Guzma had been left out. Requiring Alola League participants to have Z-Rings would've been a good idea from my viewpoint.

 

[OshyHikari]

I can't make a particular ranking, but we all know Alola belongs in the bottom of the barrel due to how open it is with no entry requirements, meaning it opened the door for very weak trainers with only one Pokemon to compete. I'd like to know what the writers were smoking when it came to creating the Alola League. Johto had a very interesting trick with three trainers competing to see who gets the entry, and it's a shame we never had that again.

 

[DatsRight]

I think Alola was just a case of them doing something different to better fit the structure of the series (namely the more character and world driven focus), if previous leagues had been more diverse in setup as well, I think it would have been less glaring.

I think besides that however, Alola seemed to be better set up what it wanted to do for a lot of the story, with several arcs being culminated and nearly every noteworthy character getting some sort of 'final hurrah'. I also appreciate it tried to have every main Pokemon contribute in some way, with no jobbers on Ash's team this time.

I could argue Johto and Sinnoh did meet that criteria as well, since while they ultimately had to formulate a way for Ash to lose, he still beat his personal rival and culminated their arc together.

Kalos is a very mixed bag in that, I'm not too uptight about Ash losing, since it did seem very deliberate to the story effectiveness, to set him up as the 'moral victor' in the Team Flare arc. The bigger problem is that they tried to have their cake and eat it too and play on the total hype train and Ash being competent enough to win this one, and when they took out that catharsis, there wasn't really a great amount of depth to it besides that little bit of poetry with the Flare arc. It was one of the most linear focused, with too much emphasis on how unstoppable AshGreninja was and how he was his ultimate trump card, only for it to lose, with only a few other noteworthy moments like the Pikachu battles.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

I think Alola was just a case of them doing something different to better fit the structure of the series (namely the more character and world driven focus), if previous leagues had been more diverse in setup as well, I think it would have been less glaring.

I think besides that however, Alola seemed to be better set up what it wanted to do for a lot of the story, with several arcs being culminated and nearly every noteworthy character getting some sort of 'final hurrah'. I also appreciate it tried to have every main Pokemon contribute in some way, with no jobbers on Ash's team this time.

I could argue Johto and Sinnoh did meet that criteria as well, since while they ultimately had to formulate a way for Ash to lose, he still beat his personal rival and culminated their arc together.

Kalos is a very mixed bag in that, I'm not too uptight about Ash losing, since it did seem very deliberate to the story effectiveness, to set him up as the 'moral victor' in the Team Flare arc. The bigger problem is that they tried to have their cake and eat it too and play on the total hype train and Ash being competent enough to win this one, and when they took out that catharsis, there wasn't really a great amount of depth to it besides that little bit of poetry with the Flare arc. It was one of the most linear focused, with too much emphasis on how unstoppable AshGreninja was and how he was his ultimate trump card, only for it to lose, with only a few other noteworthy moments like the Pikachu battles.

Thank you! I fully agree

 

[mehmeh1]

If you wanted to give an entry requirement for the Alolan League maybe let in only trainers who have earned a Z ring. Though if they did that then Guzma and his Skull grunts wouldnt have been able to enter, lol

Solution: Have Guzma beat some guy up and steal his Z ring, only to smash it on his first actual battle as a statement

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

I think Alola was just a case of them doing something different to better fit the structure of the series (namely the more character and world driven focus), if previous leagues had been more diverse in setup as well, I think it would have been less glaring.

It was definitely not world driven as there was so much less traveling and things were way too grounded to Melemele Island/Kukui's house/Kiawe's farm. It may have been character driven, but the fact is the majority of those who passed the weird battle royale had actually no business trying to make it to the top. Only the semi finalists did have a reason (except maybe Kiawe and his strange unexplained flame of Alola goal).

Solution: Have Guzma beat some guy up and steal his Z ring, only to smash it on his first actual battle as a statement

Get your amazing ideas outta this league. Guzma will lose and entirely disappear from the story without ever talking to Kukui again, and you're gonna LIKE IT.

 

[TheCrazyMaster]

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what this thread is supposed to be about. This isn't about which league had the best story, this is a ranking of how the league is STRUCTURED, from entry requirements (be it gym battles/challenges or battle royales) to the conferences themselves.
If you want to discuss storytelling then you're welcome to start a new thread, or converse on an already existing one, but it would be nice if we could stay on topic. I would recommend you read the instructions once again if you would like to give any further opinions on the league on this particular thread, but PLEASE stay on topic.

 

[CMButch]

Sinnoh league > Hoenn League > Kalos League > Johto league > Alola league( counting Ash vs Kukui) > Unova League > Orange League > Kanto League.

 

[Leonhart]

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what this thread is supposed to be about. This isn't about which league had the best story, this is a ranking of how the league is STRUCTURED, from entry requirements (be it gym battles/challenges or battle royales) to the conferences themselves.
If you want to discuss storytelling then you're welcome to start a new thread, or converse on an already existing one, but it would be nice if we could stay on topic. I would recommend you read the instructions once again if you would like to give any further opinions on the league on this particular thread, but PLEASE stay on topic.

There's a very fine line between analyzing the structure of the Leagues, and the story-line that each League followed. If we're strictly talking about the former, then the Alola League is the only one whose structure was unanimously controversial, mostly because of the battle royale round and the lack of entry requirements. And I understand that it was Alola's first League competition, but Kukui-hakase should've been more strict about who got to compete.

 

[SerenaRulez]

I didn't like how the Johto league had that round where it made Ash have to face two trainers before he could advance to the higher rounds. I thought it was really weird that he tied with Jackson but was still able to continue to fight Gary.