Has Ash really improved based on league statistics?

TyphoonStrom

TyphoonStrom

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Most only look at ashs top finish to determine if hes improved or not, but many do not take into account the amount of competitors he's had to defeat to reach said position.

Kanto, top 16 out of 256 competitors
Joeto, top 8 out of 48? competitors
Hoenn, top 8 out of 256 competitors
Sinnoh, top 4 out of 64 competitors
Unova, top 8 out of 128 competitors
Kalos, top 2 out of 64 competitors

Assuming most competitors are equal, ash technically did the best in hoenn it seems, though then again maybe the larger roster size is due to the gym leaders themselves lack of strength for allowing so many challengers to win, or maybe the regions size was a factor also.....
 
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Now this is the sort of discussion one can really sink their teeth into - numbers and stats and bias!! I had never realised that the number of entrants varied by league - it makes the achievements in Johto and Shinnou fall slightly from their former glory doesn't it?

Certainly what it does mean is that our discussions on league successes/failures are a bit invalid and totally unfair. We simply have no way of determining whether the competitors are of equal calibre in leagues of differing size so without making massive assumptions we can't directly compare Satoshi's performances - GOSH!

A lot to ponder... Thanks TyphoonStrom, great topic!
 
Tbh, why did the Sinnoh League have so few competitors? Were many of Sinnoh's trainers just not motivated to collect 8 badges. :x
 
Lion-Cub said:
This is a great topic, though you just made one mistake. According to Bulbapedia, the Silver Conference in Johto had 200 competitors and Ash placed in the Top 8, not the Top 4.
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My stats were from the wiki
Lion-Cub said:
This is a great topic, though you just made one mistake. According to Bulbapedia, the Silver Conference in Johto had 200 competitors and Ash placed in the Top 8, not the Top 4.
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My mistake, I corrected it in my OP, and used pokemon wiki for refereance, but its me that goofed.
 
Litten said:
Tbh, why did the Sinnoh League have so few competitors? Were many of Sinnoh's trainers just not motivated to collect 8 badges. :x
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No, most of the competitors abstained from entering, as they realized their chance to win is absolute zero when they saw a guy with Darkrai and Latios (and probably 4 more legendary pokemons) queue for participation registration.

Also, I think there was another guy in the queue with Heatran. Don't know what happened to this guy though. (May be eliminated in the preliminary, thanks to the previously mentioned competitor?)
 
when it comes to statistics I'm rubbish but the way I see it and the way the writers seemed to write it was he was slowly improving league after league to it got to the point it took legendries to beat him then unova screwed it all up with their stupid semi reboot idea as for kalos we'll have to see how much it's rectified
 
I don't think percentiles would be the best metric. Seeing as how we don't know why a kid with a freaking Heatran wasn't on the Bracket. Since we don't know why these Tournaments have perfect exponents of two outside of Johtos logical screening process (the only requirement would be an even number and even then they can just give one dude an extra match) and varying difficulty and diversity of gyms. The most logical way to go about it is from the top down rather than bottom up. So by that I mean look at who Ash lost to and who won the league.

In Kanto he lost to Ritchie in the eighth finals and in the next round Ritchie lost to Assunta. Since the Indigo League had a third place podium and Assunta wasn't on any of the podiums. That means Assunta was in Fourth place. Kinda lame that we didn't get to see Ash battle for third in the Sinnoh league though.

In Johto Ash lost to Harrison in the quarter final who lost to Jon Dickson who won the Silver league.

In Hoenn Ash to Tyson also in the quarter finals who won the league.

In Sinnoh Ash lost Tobias in semifinals, who won the championship match with just his Darkrai

In Unova he lost in the quarterfinals against Cameron who lost to Virgil who won the league.

It's also important the detail behind those matches.

In Kanto there was the whole Team Rocket thing but you can say it did show a lack of skill because he couldn't control Charizard and didn't have the knowledge to either have a Pokemon in his sixth slot or use it.

In Johto his Charazard crippled Blaziken.

In Hoenn he also had a close fair match with Tyson.

In Sinnoh you know the drill he was the only to take out Darkrai and he also Ko'd Latios

In Unova he lost a handicap match to Cameron, Virgil had three pokemon left when he defeated Cameron and had a close final.

To me it's highly likely that the first four leagues he improved each time and that Sinnoh was his best showing. Although not certain it does not seem unreasonable to assume he would have won if Tobias wasn't there considering he was the only one to defeat Darkrai and defeated Latios on top of it. I can't think of a probable reason that would explain Ash doing better against Tobias than more skilled trainers. You might be thinking well what if Tyson was in the Ever Grande League? Well people can have multiple close matches in the same league. So while we don't know if Tyson had close matches afterwards assuming he didn't feels less likely. To compare Johto with Hoenn you might think well in Johto his close match was closer and Morrison could have beat Ash if not for the friendship thing and Harrison could have beat Jon Dickson if not for crippled Blaziken. While I would agree that the crippled Blazekin would put the match closer, I don't think saying Blazekin being more powerful another one of his pokemon would have for sure made the difference. And the fact of the matter is even if Morrison would have beat Ash he still had a close match against the champion. Unova could be better or worse than Kanto but I say it's pretty a safe beat to say he did better in Johto than Unova due to the crippled Blazekin issue when compared to Cameron.

Regarding Kanto even if we assume Assunta had close matches with the people in 3rd and 1st in that hypothetical even if she would have wiped the floor with the person in 2nd due to match ups in training style the person in second still beat the trainer she lost to.

I have faith in my top down method and even if we were to tack on 3 round to the bottom of the Unova league in which Ash won easily. Given that the regions and their champion look like they have similar size and prestige it would seem like scrubs just had a lot of initiative that year or Unovan gym leaders are weak.

Did I mention I'm huge nerd and that the league is my favorite part of the show?
 
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The Silver Conference had over 200 participants, as the first three rounds of one-on-one battles should definitely count.
 
PhilosophyPhlare said:
In Kanto he lost to Ritchie in the eighth finals and in the next round Ritchie lost to Assunta. Since the Indigo League had a third place podium and Assunta wasn't on any of the podiums. That means Assunta was in Fourth place. Kinda lame that we didn't get to see Ash battle for third in the Sinnoh league though.
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According to Bulbapedia, the trainer in second sorta resembles her. I'd have to rewatch but that comes at the horrible cost of watching Ash vs Ritchie...
 
Ash did his best in Kalos when he landed top 2. However Sinnoh had the best league battles.
 
Now in Alola, if there is any league, Ash should reach the finals. Otherwise, SM will be no different than BW. if not the finals, then at least the semi finals.
 
look at his older teams, how many dual typed pokes did he used?
how many types did he had in a team?
(6 dual typed pokemon, if all are diffrent then the full team would consist 12 of all 16 types+ posibility of mega with type change(13) or form change through ability )
and what was his scale of using moves of diffrent types then the pokes he uses?
did he used moves with effects? how many?
did he used his pokemons abilities fully?
 
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I honestly count Johto and Sinnoh as Ash "winning", even though he didn't win the final match.

In Johto he finally defeated his childhood rival Gary and earned his respect, and in Sinnoh he had a moral victory over Paul (pretty much the biggest rival he ever had in terms of directly challenging his worldview) and proved him wrong about Chimchar. Though he lost to Tobias he managed to take down Darkrai, when I recall it was implied that every fight against Tobias had his Darkrai sweep the entire team.

I feel like the idea of Ash winning by earning the Trophy isn't always as important as winning a character moment---likewise in the Kalos League I feel Ash basically won enough for me through his great match with Shota, and I still think by the end of the Flare Arc we'll ultimately see that he's a better individual than Alain though he lost the official match. I think that's a little better writing honestly than simply having him win a trophy to prove he's the better Trainer, because that's not necessarily the point of Ash's character---what little character you may argue he has though it may be.
 
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