Tier Lists
Tier Lists are inherently subjective by nature! This list should NOT be considered as the only source of information, and there are many players who have their own opinions on how to construct a Tier List. We strongly encourage players to discuss their opinions on Tier Lists and gameplay. Check out our Community Lists for more, and feel free to start a Community Discussion or comment on our latest Changelog article if you would like to discuss this Tier List in particular!
Criteria Overview
The goal is to rank the units on their own merits, regardless of the player's available roster, while still accounting for the overall metagame, therefore these are the main criteria for our Tier List (not ordered as we're trying to balance them together instead of focusing on specific aspects):
- Team flexibility and versatility
- Compositional strength and relevancy
- Peak performance in an optimal environment
- Role compression and self-sufficiency
Note: All units are considered fully maxed and access to EX is also taken into account (mostly relevant for Supports and Sync Nukers or pairs with some incentives to Sync).
Content Priority
While keeping in mind the criteria above, the in-game content is weighted in the following order:
- Champion Stadium Master Mode
- Legendary Arena / Gauntlet
- Extreme Battles
- Battle Villa & Full-Force Battles
Categories
Sync Pairs are split into 3 categories (as opposed to their in-game role) to reflect the potential usage of their kits. Keep in mind the categories do not compare 1:1, everything is ranked within their categories and they are not meant to be compared with other categories. That being said, all Sync Pairs are ranked as whole units and not just regarding their department (ie. all their facets are taken into account when ranking them, regardless of the category they belong in).
Sub-groups
Those are essentially “Tiers inside the Tiers”. Although Sync Pairs are already ordered inside of the Tiers individually, some units are close enough to each other so that they can be grouped and even have interchangeable places between themselves. The sub-groups are identified by the background color of their icon (ie. all units with the same background color on the same Tier are on the same sub-group). This is done so that we have an even clearer distinction between the units without being too strict with the individual positions either.
New Year Update
Welcome to the first update of 2022! After the large update at the end of 2021, we’re going to review some placements this time, with a bigger focus on the Ghost and Dragon Type Sync Pairs, after we had some more time to play around with their empowered kits, so this won’t feature as many changes as last time.
Update by Ropalme1914#4339 with contributions from Spark#8888, Raven8#5530, Runner#7562, Mr.Smee#6764, Darkshark#0128, Droid#2145, Zoopy3000#0001, joek#1069 and Thegkhst (Help)#1395.
Tier 0 – A new sub-group has been created to separate Lear and Lucas from Archie and SS Red. Archie and SS Red have also switched positions, but they still share the same sub-group.
Tier 1 – SS Leon has seen a small rise inside his own subgroup after seeing his Dragon Zone power on practice.
Tier 2 – Leon has been dropped from Tier 1 to the top of Tier 2, sharing the same sub-group as Cyrus to better reflect the difference in power level of the pairs. Marnie and Raihan have joined the second sub-group behind Giovanni.
Tier 3 – Holiday Leon and NY Volkner have been moved from the bottom of Tier 2 to the top sub-group of Tier 3, also following the redistribution of Tiers. SC Hilda and Summer Marnie have been moved to the bottom of the Tier, while Lance joins Zinnia and Anniversay Steven on their sub-group.
Tier 4 – Brendan, Silver, and Fall Hilbert have all been dropped to the top sub-group of Tier 4, while SS Cynthia went up to the same group. Allister has also risen from Tier 5 to the second sub-group on Tier 4.
Tier 5 – SS Grimsley and Hilda have been moved to the sub-group of the Tier while maintaining their overall position due to the general redistribution of the Tiers. Summer Gloria and Blue have switched positions.
Tier 6 – Burgh, Fantina, and Gladion have been added to a new bottom sub-group on Tier 6 since their power was deemed more fitting of this Tier than the lower one.
Lower Tiers – Morty has risen to the top of Tier 7. Karen has been moved down to the top of Tier 8 and Clair rises to the bottom of the Tier. Ethan has been moved to the last spot on Tier 9.
Tier 0 – SSR Cynthia has been added to the Tier and now shares a sub-group with Anniversary N, while Bianca is now alone on the last sub-group.
Tier 1 – Classic Elesa has been moved to the middle of Tier 1 with her superb performance on Legendary Arena while keeping a great burst potential for faster paced modes. Palentine Serena has been moved down to below Ghetsis with the slight decline of her main builds who have gotten better partners, like Ghetsis on Freeze spam builds and Sygna Suit Cynthia on Dragon Zone teams.
Tier 2 – Champion Iris got her own sub-group at the top of the Tier, while Sidney has been moved to the bottom of the tier with his powerful nuke that can easily be slotted on almost any team.
Tier 3 – Dawn has been moved up to the middle of the Tier with the added relevance of defensive supports with slower paced modes, while Mallow has been deemed to be too low before, and as such, moved to the bottom of the Tier.
Tier 1 – Red has been moved to the bottom of the Tier to better reflect the power of his kit and the benefits of the new Lucky Skills Head Start 1 and Adrenaline 1.
Tier 2 – Professor Sycamore and Falkner are now separated from Lyra and Hop by a sub-group distinction.
Tier 4 – Sawyer has been moved to below Lillie on her sub-group and NY Sabrina has been added to the same sub-group while keeping her overall position.
Lower Tiers – BP Morty and Swimsuit Misty have switched positions.
This is all for our mid-month update of the Tier List! With no datamine being released, changes were small, but keep an eye on our site as the next update should be available shortly after the pre-2.5 anniversary datamine next time!
We're always looking for more thoughts and constructive feedback to improve our analysis and articles so make sure to drop a comment below if you want to help us refine our ever-evolving Tier List!
Updates will often come shortly after each datamine and, if necessary, additional ones will be made mid-month too, such as a unit far surpassing our expectations or performing worse than expected. The Change Logs will also always keep track of the latest updates done so that you can follow all changes easily too, so we hope you stay tuned!