All Gens The Top 10 Players of All Time

Yahallo!
If you anything about sports, you'll know that people LOVE discussing 'top 10' lists. 15 years into Smogon and after the completion of the latest individual tournament, why not have this discussion on this site? We do have the Hall of Fame, but that's obviously flawed due to team tournament reliance. This is a topic that I discussed with some friends earlier today in the Durza jerk, that has also happened many times in the Stours Discord. I'm sure it has happened in most jerks too. Smogon is obsessed with calling people overrated and garbage. There are people who value trophies and the sheet, and those who do not. This simple fundamental difference guarantees that no one will ever agree on a top 10. There's also the fact that most people on the site right now have no idea how good some lauded individuals like Veteran in Love and husk actually were. Nonetheless, this shouldn't stop us from trying.

I will now give my own personal top 10 list. Feel free to disagree or post your own lists or whatever; it's not like there's a right answer. I'm sure someone will even put Sweepage in the top 10 so.

For my list, there were some obvious factors I relied upon. I only included people who I had actually seen play for a good amount of time, for obvious reasons. I value individiual trophies and the sheet, so those obviously were important. I tried to refrain from putting individuals without an individual trophy on this list, but I did have to make an exception. Ultimately, though, the most important factor was my perceived notion of player skill. This obviously takes into account an individual's accolades, but my individual assessment of their talents also weighed pretty heavily. If I never thought an individual as a top 3 or higher player on the site at a given time, I wouldn't put him / her on the list. I suppose that going backwards would make more sense, so let's begin.

Honorable Mentions:

All the DPP and ADV legends.

People like VIL and goofball may have been good; people like teal will tell you they were trash so LOOL I really have no idea. The same can be said for people like Gouki.

Tamahome: Wins leader on the sheet and consistent for many years. In my mind, though, his peak wasn't high enough.

gr8astard: At a certain point, accomplishments HAVE to matter, at least for me. Hugo simply just did not play enough games to crack the top 10. He only has 10 on the sheet, and didn't play THAT MANY individual tours. Add in the rather dubious circumstances surrounding his OST win (he legitimately lost in Round 2) and that's enough to keep him off the list.

Earthworm: Earthworm's peak was also before my time. I started actively watching tournaments in 2011, so only results after that time will be taken into account. This, whether fairly or unfairly, wipes his individual trophy off the board. While he has had some good recent performances, his peak coming before my entry to Smogon barely knocks him off the list.

11. SoulWind
Accomplishments: 70-56, made finals of like EVERY individual tournament LOL

I know this is a top 10, but I just had to give SoulWind his own section. He has come a long way since being benched in SPL 5 for Kevin Garrett. He's made the finals of so many tournaments that I can't count them all. He's been consistent for years, and if it wasn't for his rather abrasive personality, would be over 20k in every SPL for the past 5 years. If he just won ONE individual tournament, he would be in the top 10. Unfortunately, the monkey remains chained to his back, so I leave him at 11th.

10. Lavos "ChlorineDrinker1" Spawn
Accomplishments: 57-34, won Classic, had THE BEST SPL of all time

If you told me back in 2012 that the dumbass I smashed with DD Latios would end up being a top 10 player, I would have called you unviable. But, here we are. Lavos became known as an arrogant clown in his debut, going 5-1 while making heaps of enemies in the process. He was then infamously ghosted by Isa in SPL 6. Before SPL 9, putting Lavos in the top 10 would have been blasphemy. Since then, though, he has dominated the competition and won a Classic trophy along the way (technically, he lost it, but lol). He was legitimately the best player on the site for a stretch something I cannot ever say I felt about SoulWind. After eliminating all results pre-2012, that combined with his sheet record is enough for me to put him at 10th.

9. M Dragon
Accomplishments: 54-41, won Smogon Tour

I've always been an M Dragon fan. The fact that he is only ridiculously old player to crack the list says enough. This man was playing on netbattle or some shit LOL What gives hin the edge over other older individuals like Earthworm in particular is his far more recent Smogon Tour win. Whether that's fair or not is up to you to decide, but with these razor thin margins, I will be giving him a slight edge. He's been one of the best GSC and ADV players for over a decade.

8. Ciele
Accomplishments: 28-25, only player ever with 3 individual trophies

When I was discussing this on Discord, I had Ciele as high as 3rd. The man has 3 individuals LOL But, when I thought about it, I don't think I ever felt he was the best player on the site. Oftentimes, I wouldn't even have considered him as top 3. Still, though, he achieved something that had never been done in Smogon history. Just off of that, he deserves to be on the list. While it is lower than many people would like, I personally think this position is justified due to the skills of the people above him.

7. bro fist
Accomplishments: 57-27, undisputed best tiebreak player ever until very recently, consistently worth over 30k in SPL for the past few years

John would definitely be higher with an individual trophy. Considering how stiff the competition is, though, it's hard to move him up without one. I've said many times over the past few years that I think he is the most talented battler on the site. That enough vaults him this high. As a former teammate, I can say with confidence I have never believed more in someone's ability to win an important game. While lax may be on his way to claiming the 'Tiebreak King' mantle, bro fist racked up the tiebreak wins over the course of many years. That consistency is important, and lands him at 7th, even without a trophy.

6. ABR
Accomplishments: 53-22, won OST, 38k in SPL, incredible consistency in both individual and team tours

ABR has arguably been the best player on the site since his debut in SPL 7. While othe players have had stretches of dominance, ABR has remained a constant beacon of stability throughout. His sheet record is ridiculous, and that doesn't even factor in his amazing individual tour performances. His building is obviously next level. I was always high on ABR as a player, but the gears he showed last summer were impressive even for him. With his unmatched dedication and consistency, he could easily reach the peak before he quits. The man is even a God in the old gens!! But for now, he sits just outside the top 5.

5. Bloo
Accomplishments: 15-6, won Smogon Frontier, 40k in SPL, 71% win in Smogon Tour

Bloo is right up there with Mazar as the biggest cheater in history. We all know how much I love cheaters, so it's only natural that Bloo cracks the top 5. There have been many ghosting allegations against her, but hey, based on solely what I know, Bloo has to be in the top 5. Bloo was a complete menace in her peak, and managed to go for a ridiculous 40k in SPL despite not even being a legendary builder like ABR...which is RIDICULOUS LOL When I entered Smogon, Bloo was the best player. The absurd Smogon Tour points she put up is the icing on the cake.

4. Ojama
Accomplishments: 75-57, won Smogon Tour and Smogon Classic

Ojama, without question, has been a top 5 player on the site for the past 5 years. During SPL 7, I definitely believed that he was the best player on Smogon. He won two trophies, and that combined with his longer career gives him the edge over ABR to me. When Ojama is on his game, he can easily be the best player on the site. It's a nice mix of peak and consistency.

3. BKC
Accomplishments: 61-45, he's the GOAT, won 2 Smogon Tours, 37k retain in SPL

BKC's sheet record was a lot more fire before the absolute disaster that was Snake 3 LOOL But either way, he's amazing. As someone who has teamed with him before, BKC's team support is unparalleled. The man builds in every old gen. He is the most knowledgeable DPP player ever, and can figure out your team as soon as you reveal 2 Pokemon. BKC has, in my eyes, definitely been the best player on the site at various points in his career. In the categories of knowledge and passion, BKC unquestionably takes the top spot. But for me, overall, he lands at 3rd.

2. McMeghan
Accomplishments: 55-45, won Smogon Tour, won Smogon Classic, 40.5k RETAIN in SPL

My first memory of McMeghan was his participation in a random unofficial team tournament. Teams of 3 battled each other, one at a time. The winner of game 1 would battle the second person in the other team...with a catch. You could only use as many Pokemon as you won with last game. If you beat your first opponent 4-0, you could use 4 Pokemon against the next opponent, and so on. Roro solo'd like 4 teams or something ridiculous LOL It was absurd. All you really need to know about McMeghan is that the BIGS RETAINED him for 40.5k in SPL 7, and Valentine was convinced they could just keep retaining him every year and find other steals to support him. That's how good he was. He was never as prolific a builder as someone like ABR, but his peak was ridiculous. His most recent trophy in the most stacked Classic ever cements his status as number 2 all time.

1. Tesung
Accomplishments: 25-21, won Smogon Tour 2x

Some of you may think that putting someone who only played for around 3 years is ridiculous and goes against my prior words. However, there are many individuals who think Tesung is the best player ever. He had the highest peak in the history of Smogon, and could have easily had 4 trophies in 3 years if things broke his way. Without even counting those, what he did accomplish is impressive enough. No one has ever won 2 Smogon Tours in such rapid succession. His accomplishments themselves are obviously not what puts him at the summit, though. I and many others have never seen anyone play as well as Tesung at his peak. It was inconceivable. The man even learned ADV on a whim in World Cup and did well against stiff competition like Astamatitos. If Tesung played for longer, he would no doubt have far more accolades. But even without those, he did enough to take the top spot for me.

So, there you go vros. This list is very subjective, and isn't really unbiased at all LOL I trust my memories, though, and from what I recalled, this list reflects my beliefs.

Now...let the fun begin!
 
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My own subjective list based on factors I consider important (building skills, battling skills, mentality & charisma etc):

Tier 0: Tesung - what I would consider the 'ideal' player (luck). did what they needed to in a "get in get out" fashion. managing to accomplish in a few years more than what people accomplish in their entire careers.

Tier 1: (strongest builders) ABR, craing, gr8astard - I value building the most which is why I rate these players so highly.

Tier 2: (strongest battlers) BKC, McMeghan, Ojama - all seasoned veterans with accomplishments to show for it. even though they're all pretty washed now :blobpensive:

Tier 3: (strongest conviction) Ciele, imperfectluck, WhiteQueen - all of them had been playing for many years before winning their first trophy. you could tell that had they not won it, they would have continued playing forever perhaps. this is also why I rate them over good players such as Bloo who never managed to cross the finish line - though I don't blame them either, mons is too much of a crappy game to be wasting your life on.
 
Cool post, very interesting. Its really hard to put 10 people only and have to include people who have been playing this for decades & players who introduced themselfs into the competitive scene way after in the same category. Still very interesting and makes me want to research myself, find old battles of people considered veterans, people who have been into competitive pokemon like when i was ten or something.
 
Tesung, Kingpin, BKC, MCM, ABR, Ciele, SW, bro fist, lax, ben gay, lavos

not in any particular order though i do think tesung is the best of all time. people will probably yell at me for lax but if he won slam i would say on the strength of the past 1.5 years alone he's more than earned it. also i cheated and did 11 cuz i forgot lavos and his like two year absurd run.
 
Tier 2: (strongest battlers) BKC, McMeghan, Ojama - all seasoned veterans with accomplishments to show for it. even though they're all pretty washed now :blobpensive:
I don't dispute this applying to me at all but I wanted to respond regarding the other two, since these sorts of discussions are often dominated by statements based on puzzling pretenses such as the sentiment expressed here. McMeghan won Classic (and ADV Cup en route) not too long ago. Ojama also had a great showing across Classic as well as OLT and OST while McM also qualified for the previous Tour and is doing well in this current season... this is just scratching the surface in terms of results, and both are playing as well as they ever have. As such, I cannot understand the metric you are using to call these players washed up. I don't like it when recency bias (especially when it's disingenuous or straight up inaccurate) plays a part in shitting on great players and found this to be a particularly egregious example, unless there's something I'm missing.
 
I don't dispute this applying to me at all but I wanted to respond regarding the other two, since these sorts of discussions are often dominated by statements based on puzzling pretenses such as the sentiment expressed here. McMeghan won Classic (and ADV Cup en route) not too long ago. Ojama also had a great showing across Classic as well as OLT and OST while McM also qualified for the previous Tour and is doing well in this current season... this is just scratching the surface in terms of results, and both are playing as well as they ever have. As such, I cannot understand the metric you are using to call these players washed up. I don't like it when recency bias (especially when it's disingenuous or straight up inaccurate) plays a part in shitting on great players and found this to be a particularly egregious example, unless there's something I'm missing.
Let me preface this by saying I watch a lot of you guys play - in particular, during the Tour season (current event). I don't doubt the skills and experience that you've built up, as OJ is one of my most watched players for a reason.
But the 'metric' used is simply current gen OU performance. It's not too surprising to see McM perform well in tours that include past gens, which are stagnated, but also tiers where they've peaked at. If we look at the performance in tours of current gen ou, then the difference is like night and day.
While OJ still continues to have impressive showings in all tour types, it's still very different from 'peak' ojama. This is just my personal view, but by looking at the team choices and builds, it's clear to me that he has entrenched some old fashioned ideas into building that are a bit dated. Ojama can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he ladders unless he has to which is why I'm saying this. I don't think it compares to the new wave of ou players that ladder a lot, daily.

TL;DR:
All of this is just my honest opinion. Not trying to shit on any players for whom I have much respect for.
While I don't doubt the prowess in past gens, watching you guys play current ou makes me cringe bro
 

MANNAT

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Just want to point out that saying classic tiers have "stagnated" and marginalizing people's accomplishments just because they perform well in them is pretty ridiculous considering how actively they shift and change. For example, the BW OU metagame during WCOP was starkly different from the metagame during SPL, with the increased usage of SF Drill happening to combat the wave of boltbeam Reuni that was rising in the metagame. These tours were mere months apart, and trends rise and fall in various classic tiers on a regular basis. Regardless, achieving mastery in all of these tiers is no simple feat due to the myriad of mechanical changes and obviously starkly different metagames that each one of them have. For this reason, Classic is widely considered the most difficult trophy to win in the current smogon tournament circuit, so it's pretty ridiculous to call someone that just won that trophy mere months ago "washed" in addition to the people with various accolades in these tiers.
 
Just gonna do a quick response:

Where did I say that winning classic wasn't an impressive feat? it's one of the reasons why I rate McM so highly.
stagnant as compared to SM? yes. higher playrate means more changes to the meta. it's interesting you chose BW as your example, since that still gets played a ton in stours. sure, minute changes may still occur, but you can't convince me that RBY isn't a deadass tier. oh, how far we've fallen. Excadrill changes an ability? == METAGAME SHIFT!!!
not at all. in past gens? goat. in current gen? more washed than a rotom.

Again, this is just my opinion. Don't @ me.
 
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10. Tamahome
9. lavos
8. Bro fist
7. Soulwind
6. McM
5. ABR
4. Ojama
3. Ciele
2. BKC
1. Tesung

Hm: low tier goats omfuga and level 56

edit: based off of two years of playing the game so most of this is off of replays and what other people tell me, so take it for what your will.
 
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Texas Cloverleaf

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if we're talking about tesung we need to give credit to reyscarface. i was there when tesung was discovered and full credit goes to rey for seeing the talent that man had and convincing his manager that tesung was THE GUY to pick up and bring into the tournament scene
 
This may be recency bias, but to me ABR is the #1.

Not only is he the most influential player of the latest two generations, hes also been smashing the greatest old gen mains in their own tiers, qualifying for classic playoffs, showing splendid understanding of GSC during SPL X, a fantastic ADV performance in Callous Invitational 3 & also putting up great showings in BW on numerous occasions in Smogon Tour (where he frequently qualifies as the #1 seed). He has an OST title, numerous deep runs in other individuals reaching as far as finals and three team tournament trophies, from two different competitions. Lastly, 53-22 is an absurd record in those team tournaments, out of the people on your top 10 list only Bro Fist gets even close to his win percentage (not counting Bloo at only 21 games).

In this modern competitive Pokemon era it is extremely hard to show such superiority over your fellow competitors and the way ABR manages to do it over and over is nothing short of admirable.

Also, I disagree with one's SPL pricing being a truly indicative factor of skill level, the subsequent record does a way better job at determining it than the opinion of 1 managerial duo.
 
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Corazan

Crystal
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Hello, It's nice to see you making some good threads sometimes instead of just bashing peoples, bravo Shake.
Im gonna give my top but just wanted to say first that as you may know Im not an old player so I didn't really witness Tesung's or Ew's era for example sadly. But for some people like BKC or Mdragon Ive watched a ton of stuff on them on youtube back in the days for example and they were still playing when I joined.

Also Im just a guy that really love witness games in general (instead of playing :messi:) and keep in mind that im not doing this to ride dicks or things like that (never ever talked to 90% of those players and not interested to it), I dont care at all, Im just here to give my personal thoughts on the bests player like you can do it in football or any other sports.

Honorable Mentions:

Posho :
We shouldnt forget him, doing a smogontour finals + winning the next one is a HUGE achievement. And it's especially the fact that he won the 23th season, clearly one of the bests one to me with the top 16 being stacked as fuck , every matchup was hot fire and I remember Ive even written all the scheduled times bc I didnt want to miss a single game, good old times if I can say lol. Also a BW goat for sure.

Tamahome : Amazing at every OU tiers he touches, I hate to talk about the sheet but we're kinda forced to here because he has the best record so far as Shake said. Consistently putting some good records in every tournaments and should be #1 in dpp.

Tricking : Some may call him a clicker, Hes a huge brain and everything he does is calculated. No one dominated the SM OU field as he did for the 2 pasts years, hes also like tama, amazing at every tiers he touches as hes one of the few players who have made every playoffs.

Lax : I dont think I really need to explain here. He showed to everyone this year that hes an amazing SM OU player in wcop and is also a low tiers master with the recent slam finals and winning SPL, he can play old gens too as he did classic playoffs in the past. Sucess in both individual and team tournaments, what a perfect year for him.

Charmflash : Def one of the best players right now, did amazing in OST and confirmed with the following SPL and now hes just killing it, dominated OLT, slam playoffs and doing well currently in snake, him being at the very top next to those 10 beasts is just a matter of time.

Blunder : Dominated a lot the 2 latest generations, revealed with an OST finals and won a smogontour not too long ago. Def the best oras player ever to me.

TOP 10 :

10.Soulwind :
Did final of every tournament beside slam, amazing performances and can literaly defeat any player on the site right now. Consitently doing very well in team tours too and is one of the few player that can play every tiers (old gens + low tiers) bar maybe doubles. His hour of glory in individuals will come one day hopefully.

9.Lavos :
I strongly thought that Lavos was the best player the year he won the classic, if McM didnt stop him he would have probably win the following one too and would def be higher than 9th idk if he will comeback but it will be weird to see a GSC pool without him in SPL.

8.Ciele :
What I love about him is the fact that he won everything and quit like a boss without saying anything, respectable. Hes the only player that have won 3 indiv trophies, he has his own vision of the game and I really liked how he adapted his style for the SMOU with some unholy teams.
Hes also a beast at BW OU as he played this tier a lot in SPL and in oldgens in general.

7.Ben gay :
He will stay the best builder ever in my opinion. Incredible player, it's like he was already playing the game in the womb of his mother. Im really glad he won the OST because that's the best trophy he could have as he really dominated the SM OU.
I understood that he doesnt like playing the game but let's hope he is gonna be curious about the gen 8 and will eventually comeback, He is needed on the site as he is a metagame changer a make a tier progress a lot by finding what is good and what is not quickly.

6.Mdragon :
I wasnt around the year he won the stour but that was against Leftiez so I was forced to watch it on youtube. Mdragon is probably the player that I like watch playing the most in this top, in wcop, spl or classic (bw cup semis and bw cup finals back to back is amazing) and I also think that hes the best gsc/adv player.

5.BKC :
Considered as the best player ever by a lot of ppl in the community. He is the librairy of oldgens and can gives the best commentarys in those, he also created like every DPP/ADV/GSC teams and some metagames would def not be the same at the moment if he wasn't here. Also has an absurd sense of the analysis and is one of the most calculated player.
Winning 2 smogtours is also retarded and he is indeed a huge pillar for the game.

4.Mcmeghan :
I see McM as that lazy guy in class that have excellent marks without even working. He can correct me If im wrong but he didnt take a lot of time at prepping and didnt struggle really hard in the recent classic he won, always playing sunday, using cheesy strats sometimes lol. I wanted to put him #1 so badly because yea, he is the goat, has like ciele his own vision of this game, watching him playing is always something and I love how fascinated he is by the game + winning classic & stour is probably the best trophy combo but I had to be objective considered the players above, sad that hes not that much interested by the SM metagames btw.
Probably my fav french player.

3.Ojama :
A ton of respect for Ojama, winning classic & stour is, as I said for Mcm the best trophy combo. He is a ADV/BW legend and Im a huge fan of his DPP even if he doesnt play it that much now. But the most impressive part is that he kept dominating the game with some insane performances in SM. He deserved a ton the OLT trophy but some bs happenned. He is also creating his owns team and is doing his stuff alone and I really like that.

2.ABR :
As Charm said he is easily the most influential player of the latest two generations and have been an amazing surprise in oldgens esp this year w his classic performances, he seemed to show a special interest for the GSC tier and already reached the top of it.
As for Ben gay the OST title is the best one he could have, but he def deserves a stour one. ABR also has an absurd consistency as he is doing playoffs of every indiv tournaments he joins.
ABR is atm the best representent of the competitive side of smogon right now and he is needed for the current and following years, I wouldnt imagine whats gonna happen when he will be gone.

1.Bro fist :
It will seems absurd to some ppl and I know I talked about objectivity earlier with Mcm, not to see him in the top ofc but the fact that I rank him #1.
I just personally think that Bro fist is the best player in the game and if I had to pick someone to play a game that my life will depends on it, I'll choose him without a doubt.
Im not talking about individual performances or anything but If you give him an opponent and a small amount of time to prep for both, he will do the very best of the best to beat him.
If he fails, its not gonna be his fault, either some matchup inconvenients or some bad luck because on the playing side he will always do what he needs to do to win.
 
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Mr.E

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I'm perplexed by the simultaenous respect for the current generationally well-rounded players while at the same time having zero respect for older players who excelled at the time those old gens were current and significantly carried it through to the next one and the next one.
 
Disclaimer 1: Jabba: “Pure skill is also in the eye of the beholder”
Disclaimer 2: I followed tours/ladder from 2008-2011, 2016 - present

With those couple points out of the way, it's always fun to reminisce about the past and talk about the best players throughout the course of Smogon. Shoutouts to Shake for actually contributing something interesting to Smogon and making me want to post my thoughts on this topic. After briefly reading through some of the earlier posts made in the thread, I was pretty surprised to see the lack of players mentioning players/talent pre 2011. For people who never watched them, could at least mention them in the honorable mentions from reading upon their achievements and not doing that at all is pretty disrespectful, but then again we are talking about Pokemon so no one really cares.

Anywayyy, you might notice that I intentionally omitted write-ups for certain players in the top 10 and that’s only meant to show that I wasn’t around to watch them play in their peak so I really have no interest in regurgitating someone else’s thoughts in my own words. A few of factors I factored in are obviously trophy and sheet records but also if you weren’t a builder of the teams you used then that automatically takes you out of contention for all time 10, and finally for those that stopped or who may stop playing, any potential legacy/existing legacies were considered. With that all of that back ground here is my list and the write-ups.

Honorable mentions:
Gr8astard
To this day, I have never seen a single Hugo team nor a single game he’s played whether it’s a replay or live game. Thus I cannot accurately rank him amongst the others. His OST trophy and his apparent legacy from the po ladder is good enough for him to make it into the honorable mentions but no further.

Panamaxis
If this was a list of the greatest dppers then Panamaxis would certainly be in the top 5 for that list. Metagame defining dude in terms of his creative yet dominant teams and at his peak in tours, he was phenomenal making the semifinals of OST back to back. However, with respect to an all time player list his individual achievements keep him just shy of making it into the top 10.

Gouki, Tesung
I group both of these players in the same boat since their peaks were insanely high. Their individual trophy(s) prove that at certain points they were capable of being the best player on the site. Ironically, both of them found on opposite ends of spectrum when it came to luck in battles. Luck definitely influenced their trophy endeavors at some point which contributes to their presence on the honorable mentions but more importantly, neither of them played for very long so that takes them out of contention for an all time player list.


Top 10:

10. Ciele
Accomplishments: 28-25, only player ever with 3 individual trophies

9. ABR
Accomplishments: 53-22, won OST, very consistent in both individual and team tours
If I’m being honest, ABR only made his way onto this list because of his unparalleled team support/building. That carries much more weight and relevance than his OST trophy he won. I don’t want to really talk about his finals against ben gay. He has been very influential in the development of Oras and SM metas. He has started expanding to old gens but his approach is rather limited to those meta games, as often mentioned by Ojama. The other day in the smog tours discord when everyone was discussing shake’s original list, I remember dropping in to mention that ABR is a newer team player version of Ipl. His sheet record is impressive because of his play style which coincidently matches that of Ipl who exploited them a decade ago. Overall he’s an excellent person that contributes to the community/ every team that he’s on. That being said, i'm just not very high on him and can’t put him higher on an all time list. Maybe my opinion will change if he reaches new heights but for now #9 is the best spot he can get.

8. McMeghan
Accomplishments: 55-45, won Smogon Tour, won Smogon Classic
7. M Dragon
Accomplishments: 54-41, won Smogon Tour
6. Ojama
Accomplishments: 75-57, won Smogon Tour and Smogon Classic
5. BKC
Accomplishments: 61-45, won 2 Smogon Tours

4. Imperfectluck
Accomplishments: won OST
When it’s all said and done, IPL undoubtedly will remain the greatest ladderer in the history of online Pokemon. Full stall/defensive teams are already high win rate teams since you decrease the margin of error by using almost only 100% accurate moves, but when you combine that with someone who actually knows how to predict, or as he referred to it 'glorified guessing', you end up with a monster aka ipl. He dominated the good ol’ days of the DP ladder by abusing the shit out of Wobbuffet before it got banned and then again on the DPP ladder innovated stall by using curse spiritomb. He carried on to BW1 and spammed Gliscor sub protect stall on the ladder just to show how he could win in different meta games. He also showed that he wasn’t a one dimensional player, who only played on the ladder, by doing well in individual tours. He made it to the Smogon tour 9 finals in an extremely stacked playoff roster, when the format was dpp uu ou uber, only to lose to another legend Zak91. He redeemed himself in the last official smogon tournament that featured dpp, by using unexpected gimmicks. At the end of day, mons is mons and IPL showed that he could win. That’s enough to put him at #4 all time as a builder and player.

3. Veteran in Love
Accomplishments: won 2 Smogon Tours
He had already won his smogon tours 1 and 3 before I started following tours so I can’t speak about his battling prowess during that run. I still do remember him being incredible in like 2008 predicting your almost every move and just being a beast during Asia’s 3-peat. Obviously everyone knows of his most famous team, Superman, that Goofball spammed during tours. At his peak, there are few who can match his level securing his place as 3rd all time.

2. Earthworm
Accomplishments: 30-8 Wcop record, won Smogon Tour
I was really surprised that like only one person included worms In their top 10 all time list. Kinda understandable considering many people didn’t see him when he was peaking in dp/dpp. The most immediate analogy that comes to my mind when I contrast a DP worms and GSC worms is: dp worms is like a very efficient robot vs gsc worms is a senile old man. Along with Gouki, Husk, worms was a top 3 player for most if not all of the DPP era. He was a fantastic builder and he just won so many unofficial tours during that time. He proved that he was Oceania’s best man in crunch time by winning crucial tiebreakers vs Asia and then vs west to clutch the prestigious 3-peat. He won smogon tour against Gouki in the finals when it was still ou uu uber which was pretty impressive. Anyway, not much else to say other than the fact he was an incredible battler and should be in most people’s top 5 all time lists.

1. Husk
Ok I’m sure not many people expected him to land at #1 on an all time list but if you know me then this shouldn’t really be a surprise considering how much I still rave about him. It’s really tragic that so many people on this website have no clue who he even is, probably up there on a top 10 “most forgotten legends” list. Originally a Pokerealm net battler, his conversion to smogon is by far the greatest thing that this website will ever see. He was the best net battler from that era and then went on to dominate DP. Created 'Astral Projection' which was absolutely dominant and to me one of the pioneering teams for the HO archetype. Peak Husk is probably the greatest skill in playing and building you can ever see in competitive mons and circa 2009, everyone thought so too. Then we finally reach 2009 which I still view as one of the most pivotal years in online Pokemon since the creation of Smogon. For dudes who didn’t see any tour games that year, we start off the tours that year with August basically showing the world that however good you play, one turn of good luck is enough to completely turn the tables. Anyway we reach the most important event everyone looks forward to: Wcop. Mind you, there was no SPL so there was no difference between the player pools between spl and wcop like there is today, meaning the best players on smogon all participated in that team tour. Not many people can go through the entire tour unbeaten until the finals tiebreaker (7-0). He came up clutch in the semifinals against us west only to c*ckblock philip7086 in the semi tiebreaker and send Asia to the finals. For god’s sake, this man only lost in the finals tiebreaker to a DP Worms who cteamed him but I digress. Even though he’s been gone for a while his legacy is still alive and people reference dominant performances with “husk level of performances”; the most public recent one being Conflict’s run in the 2016 wcop. Anyway, there comes a point in time where personal skill allows you to ascend past trophies and Husk is definitely an individual who achieved that landing him in the top spot in my list for all time 10 players.
 

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