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Favorite Pokémon Picker

For each group of Pokémon presented to you, click one or more of your favorites from that group and press the "Pick" button. Eventually, your favorite Pokémon will start appearing under "Found Favorites". You can continue as long as you like to construct an arbitrarily long list of your favorite Pokémon.

In principle, the result will be perfectly accurate, provided you pick consistently - you'll correctly get your second favorite second, even if it's pitted against your absolute favorite early on, for instance. Click here for more on how this tool works and the algorithm behind it. In practice, human preferences are somewhat fuzzy and fluid from moment to moment, and sometimes you might simply overlook a Pokémon. To account for this, you can reorder your favorites after they've been added onto the list, and previously eliminated Pokémon can be 'rescued' by clicking the link below your found favorites.

Various filtering and presentation options for the picker can be found in the "Options" tab next to "Found Favorites" below.

How It Works

The idea for the favorite Pokémon picker is not original to me; it is inspired by an old, now-defunct original that has been recreated with upgrades here. Basically, it would present you with a random pair of Pokémon, you'd pick the one you liked better, and that would eliminate the other Pokémon from the running and then give you another pair randomly chosen from the remaining Pokémon. Eventually, when you had eliminated every Pokémon but one, the remaining one had to be your very favorite Pokémon, and the last few you eliminated were given second to tenth place.

This picker was designed to improve on this concept a bit. The main differences are that it will present you with up to 20 Pokémon at a time by default, which speeds up the picking process considerably, and that rather than giving second to tenth place to the last nine Pokémon you eliminated (which leaves them partially up to chance - if the old picker happens to make you pick between your two favorites early on, your real second favorite won't even make the list), it will instead bring back all Pokémon eliminated by your favorite and have you pick between them in the same way as before. This recursiveness also means that instead of cutting it off at top ten, you can in theory continue picking until you've ordered literally every single Pokémon into a favorites list.

The basic principle driving this picker is still elimination - it just also keeps track of which Pokémon you picked over each eliminated Pokémon. For example, if the picker shows Charizard and Butterfree, and you pick Charizard, it doesn't give Charizard points or mark it as liked somehow; it just marks Butterfree as eliminated by Charizard. If you eventually go on to eliminate every Pokémon except Charizard, then Charizard will be added to your Found Favorites, and Butterfree (and any other Pokémon that were eliminated by Charizard) will be back in the running for second place. Similarly, if you had previously had a batch with Charizard, Butterfree and Blastoise in it, and you picked Charizard and Butterfree, then Blastoise will reappear whenever Charizard and Butterfree have both been added under Found Favorites.

All that picking means is therefore, "I like all of these Pokémon better than any of those." This is intentionally a broad, flexible statement; you'll end up with the same result regardless of how many Pokémon you choose to pick from each batch, so it's up to you how many you want to pick at a time (so long as you do keep eliminating some). If you just want to get your number one favorite or a select few, it's quickest to try to pick just one preferred Pokémon from each batch, while if you want to construct something like a top fifty list, you may want to start by picking every Pokémon that's likely to end up in that top fifty.

For the first "round" (a cycle through every single Pokémon) of the picker only, you can optionally use split mode - so named because in this mode you start by splitting all the Pokémon into two categories. What this means is that you should pick every Pokémon you like and ignore the rest in that first round, and once that round is over, all the Pokémon you didn't pick will be marked as eliminated by all the ones you did. This ensures that as you continue you'll be working only with Pokémon you like until such a time as all of them have been added to your favorites - but beware: if your mental standard for what you'll pick shifts from batch to batch in split mode, you may end up eliminating some Pokémon you like better than some of the ones you picked in other batches! This only begins to skew your results if your list actually ends up becoming long enough a Pokémon on the margins ought to come next, however.

Because of the central elimination mechanic, the regular "classic mode" does not allow you to pick nothing: Pokémon can only ever be eliminated by some other Pokémon, so that the picker can know when to bring them back. The "Pass" button in classic mode is instead equivalent to picking every Pokémon in the batch, which eliminates nothing and simply means all those Pokémon get shuffled into the next round - passing over and over won't get you anywhere, so make sure you do some actual picking. On the other hand, in split mode passing on a batch will eliminate that entire batch, since they will simply be eliminated by the Pokémon you pick from other batches.

Hide explanation

Pick your favorites out of the Pokémon shown!

Pokémon remaining to be eliminated before next favorite is found:

Progress towards next favorite:

Not seeing one of your favorite Pokémon? Click here to check what happened to it.

Import/export state

To export your picker state (in order to, for example, import it on another computer, or allow me to replicate an issue you're experiencing), copy the entire contents of the text box below and save them however you see fit - in a text file on your computer, in an e-mail to yourself, etc.

To import a state, erase the entire contents of the text box and replace them with an exported state, then press the "Import state" button below.

If checked, all displayed sprites will be shiny.

The maximum number of Pokémon shown at a time. When there are few Pokémon left in a round, you'll see fewer than this. Reducing the maximum batch size may make it easier to pick, but it will also take longer to get through each round.

Include forms: , , , , , , In forms mode, Pokémon forms are included as separate entities, split into the above categories.

If checked, only forms marked as "major" (aesthetically significant, as judged somewhat arbitrarily by me) will be included - for instance, no barely-visible gender differences or partial color variations.

If checked, only final evolutions will be included.

Generations to include: , , , , , , , , , Only Pokémon from the checked generations will appear. In forms mode, forms count as the generation where they were introduced, but gender differences as the base Pokémon's generation.

Types to include: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Only Pokémon that have at least one of the selected types will appear.

If unchecked, Pokémon that might be considered spoilers, either for story reasons or because they're officially unreleased, will be excluded.

Want to create your own favorite picker? It's on GitHub with instructions to get you started.

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