Pokémon Sword & Shield gives trainers a ton of choices right at the beginning of the game. Besides your traditional choice of three starters, there’s more variety in the wild Pokémon than ever before, as tons of new and old favorites are available just nearby your hometown of Postwick.
Once you reach the Wild Area and explore more of Galar your options widen up, but some of the earliest Pokémon can help carry your team through tons of Gyms on your journey to become the Galar Champion. These are the best Pokémon you can get early on, and some that you probably shouldn’t bother catching.
Updated by Tanner Kinney October 28th, 2020: With both expansions out for Pokémon Sword and Shield, the full game is finally in the hands of players worldwide. One expansion provides a side activity for the player to complete alongside their journey to become champion, and the other provides post-game kicks and excitement to keep them coming back. The journey has only been expanded. However, since the Isle of Armor is accessible to players early on, there are plenty of additional Pokémon that can be considered when building a team through the early and late game.
16 Invest In: Jigglypuff
Located in the Fields of Honor, Jigglypuff (and its baby form, Igglybuff) are both available to the player. This classic Pokémon was a popular returning character in the anime and a hated villain in the scene of competitive Smash Bros. Melee, and it’s no slouch in its source game either.
It can be seen as the less-effective sibling to Cleffairy, but it still has a wide movepool and a solid statline. It can slot in as an effective Fairy-type, and Wigglytuff is an easy evolution with a Moon Stone. Easy stone evolutions are great to get an early power spike that doesn’t fall off too incredibly hard, as long as the player can find TMs and TRs.
15 Avoid: Buneary
Buneary is a cute little normal-type, and that’s about all it has to its name. It is found in the Fields of Honor, but it’s hardly inspiring to any veteran trainers. Its movepool is inconsistent with its statline, with many great TMs and TRs not suited to its attack stat and “bulk.”
Lopunny was an incredibly solid Mega Evolution option back in prior generations, but like many others, it lost its spark. In Sword and Shield, Lopunny is another underwhelming normal-type in a sea of underwhelming normal-types. It’s not worth picking up unless you really like its design.
14 Invest In: Zorua
Zorua is a bit rarer of a find, able to be found in early Isle of Armor locations but only under certain weather conditions. Without manipulating the weather, this may just not happen when needed. However, if the stars align, then Zorua is an incredible Pokémon to find and use throughout the game.
Its versatility in strong offensive stats and moves allow it to fill all sorts of roles in a team. However, its best strength is in abusing the AI with masterful Illusions. By slotting in a Poison-type in the last spot of a team, Zorua and Zoroark can take Psychic-type attacks for free until the enemy gets smart, which may not even happen. Plus, Zorua is just a really cute and unusual option.
13 Avoid: Fomantis
Speed is often the best stat in determining a Pokémon’s usefulness, especially in casual play. By just being faster than the opponent, it’s a lot easier to control the pace of battles. Of course, bulky Pokémon have their place and are good to bring along, but slow offensive Pokémon are rarely a great option. This includes Fomantis and Lurantis.
Found in a variety of locations, this cute little grass-type may seem inoffensive. However, Fomantis has surprisingly awful stats for a pre-evolved Pokémon. Lurantis has a solid attack stat and decent bulk, but it isn’t quite bulky enough to allow it to deal serious damage without proper setup. There are other, better grass-types to pick and supplement a team.
12 Invest In: Wooper
Wooper is an unassuming Pokémon. This slow, bulky water-type is just like so many other bulky water-types. It is very cute, though, and for fans of cute Pokémon, it’s likely to be picked up early. However, when it evolves, it becomes a defensive beast that’s viable at every level of play.
The typing of Wooper and Quagsire is water/ground, which is one of the best defensive typings in the game. Sure, it has a glaring weakness to grass, but that’s easily made up for in the fact that it resists so much else. It also has a decent offensive stat in its attack, allowing it to use moves like Earthquake effectively. It’s versatile and can slot into any team. Wooper is a fantastic Pokémon to pick up early for those with access to the Isle of Armor.
11 Avoid: Dunsparce
Able to be found in the Soothing Wetlands, Dunsparce is as much of a joke as it is in prior games. While its stats allow it to have some usefulness early in the game, it has incredibly poor scaling through the rest of the game. Even with a wide movepool, Dunsparce just still can’t cut it against the competition.
The best thing Dunsparce has going for it is the ability Serene Grace. This gives it the ability to manipulate RNG in its favor during battles, but that doesn’t make up for its weaknesses enough. It’s better to just use Togekiss with Serene Grace, or literally any other Pokémon. Dunsparce is just awful.
10 Invest In: Rookidee
The first birds you encounter in the Pokémon series are rarely weak, and Rookidee is no exception. It can be relatively plain in terms of its Dark and Flying-type moves, but once it reaches its final form, Corvinight, it gains a unique Steel-typing and some remarkable defensive stats to suit its intimidating appearance.
This last evolution comes quite late at level 38, but Rookidee and its second evolution Corvisquire have enough speed and offense to make it a solid teammate through the entire game. It’s a strong and speedy fighter early, and an unstoppable tank by the end of your journey.
9 Avoid: Skwovet
There are tons of Skwovets everywhere in the game, both in the grass around your hometown and hiding in trees. It’s far from the worst Normal-type thanks to its high maximum health, but its speed is disturbingly slow and only gets slower once it evolves into Greedent.
Its offensive stats aren’t great, but it can theoretically be made up for by being able to learn tons of TMs and TRs of several different types. Unfortunately, there are very few diverse moves to teach it early in the game, so your Skwovet is almost always going to lag behind your other partners.
8 Invest In: Wooloo
If you want a Normal-type that can carry a team somewhat better, you could do far worse than the adorable Wooloo. This cuddly sheep is already beloved for its soft and cuddly appearance, but its speed and defensive stats are remarkably higher than other easy-to-catch Pokémon, and gets even stronger when it evolves into the faster and stronger Dubwool.
If you wish to have one, though, it’s strongly recommended you find one with the ability Fluffy, which halves all physical damage at the cost of a Fire-type weakness. Fire-type moves are quite uncommon, and this much resistance can make it incredibly hard for even Gym Leaders to take down, making Wooloo even bulkier than it already is.
7 Avoid: Yamper
Yamper might be a gift for dog and corgi lovers, but its power doesn’t come close to matching its cuteness. Before it evolves into Boltund at level 25, it’s incredibly slow and has no significant stats, and while it learns some useful moves like Nuzzle that deal damage and cause Paralysis it doesn’t have the offense to keep up with opponents.
Boltund’s stats are much higher, but its Attack and Special Attack are still mediocre while its defenses are so low that nearly any strong opponent will annihilate it in one hit. It might be able to outrun a Charizard, but it can’t deal anywhere near as much damage.
6 Invest In: Caterpie
Bug-types can often be a gamble in Pokémon games. They don’t typically have very high stats and they often carry a large number of weaknesses, but their speed and unusual moves can often make up for it. Not every insect will make the cut, but the ones that do will often be a vital member of your team.
Caterpie is one of the first Bug-types in the series, and even now it remains one of the strongest. It evolves into its final form Butterfree incredibly early and learns tons of moves that cause status conditions and stat changes, and this unique movepool makes up for its mildly disappointing stats.
5 Avoid: Chewtle
Rock and Water-type Pokémon can often be a liability, having a ludicrous number of weaknesses without the offensive or defensive stats to counteract them. They both make for great offensive types if they can land a hit, but far too many will faint from a single attack or move too slow to make the first move.
Chewtle comes much closer to being playable, as its speed is much higher than other Rock-type tanks like Coalassal while maintaining some high defenses. Unfortunately, they don’t make up for the huge list of weaknesses, and it’s still bound to struggle against the large variety of fast opponents in this game.
4 Invest In: Zigzagoon
In Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire, Zigzagoon was not a worthwhile choice for your team. Its speed is remarkable and it evolves spectacularly early, but its stats don’t scale at all in the later parts of the game. As a result, it can be quite a bit of a waste putting it into your Hoenn team.
The new Galarian Zigzagoon solves these problems with its third evolution, Obstagoon, who grants this family a substantial boost of power. This regional form is extremely rare as a random Pokémon in Route 2’s grass, but if you’re lucky enough to come across one it can be a powerful Dark and Normal-type beater who can take an alarming number of hits.
3 Avoid: Nickit
The Pokémon series has featured several fast and early Dark-type tricksters, but very few of them are strong or useful. Pokémon like Purrloin and Alolan Meowth might be adorable, but they learn lots of moves like Thief and Torment that are mostly useless against NPC trainers, and their bodies are so fragile that they faint over the weakest attacks.
Nickit and its evolution Thievul are perfect examples, continuing this trope and making for a Pokémon with a mediocre Speed stat and not much else. Much like Skwovet, it can at least learn a variety of attacks later in the game, but its damage output is so poor that using TRs to improve it is essentially a waste.
2 Invest In: Your Starter
Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey are not only the strongest Pokémon you can get early in this game, but they might also be some of the best starters to use in the entire series. Like all starters, their stats are incredibly high throughout each evolution, and by evolving at level 15 and 36, their stats scale at a convenient pace as the game grows more difficult.
What sets them apart from most starters, though, is that they don’t gain any secondary types as they evolve so they all lack many weaknesses, while naturally learning all sorts of moves to easily counter the Pokémon they’re weak against. This mono-typing also makes them incredibly easy to build a team around without having duplicate typings, so there’ll almost always be a good spot for your starter in your team.
1 Avoid: Hoothoot
Rookidee does a good job carrying the Pokémon series tradition of powerful early Flying-type birds, but Galar also features the weakest member of the early bird club. Hoothoot originally appeared in Pokémon Gold & Silver, but has some of the lowest stats of any of these birds and hardly learns any useful moves.
It gains some impressive health when it evolves into Noctowl, and it’s nice to have some Psychic-type moves on a Normal and Flying-type, but there are plenty of Psychic-types you can encounter later with better defenses that make much better use of these moves. Hoothoot was already weak in Johto, and it’s only weaker in Galar.
NEXT: Pokémon Sword & Shield: 10 Tips For Taking On The Champion Cup
