12 Cat Pokemon Ranked Worst to Best: Which Felines Actually Win in Battle

Pokemon has been drawing cats since 1996, and the design well never ran dry — a Maneki-neko coin-cat, a masked lynx magician, and a lightning beast built from the Raiju legend all count. Most “best cat Pokemon” lists rank purely on cuteness. This one doesn’t stop there.

Every entry below is ranked on two things: how significant the design actually is, and whether the Pokemon does anything in a real battle — backed by current VGC usage data, not vibes. That second part is what most cat-Pokemon roundups skip entirely; a Pokemon can be the most beloved design in the franchise and still be dead weight on turn one. Verified against Pokemon Scarlet and Violet VGC 2026 Regulation I usage stats and current Pokedex entries as of September 2026; values may shift with future balance patches [7].

Cat Pokemon Ranked at a Glance

The short version: if you’re building a competitive team, skip straight to the top four. If you’re collecting for nostalgia or a Nuzlocke, the bottom half is where the character is.

Rank	Pokemon	Gen / Type	Best For	Skip If
12	Skitty	III / Normal	Breeding, Nuzlockes	Building a real team
11	Meowth	I / Normal	Nostalgia, Pay Day gimmick	Anything ranked
10	Glameow	IV / Normal	Speed-tier trivia	It’s not evolved yet
9	Espurr	VI / Psychic	Leveling toward Meowstic	You want it, not its evolution
8	Delcatty	III / Normal	Casual, completionist Dex	Ranked or VGC play
7	Purugly	IV / Normal	Casual bulk, Thick Fat niche	You need offense
6	Perrserker	VIII / Steel	Slow, Trick Room cores	Team runs normal speed control
5	Persian (Alolan)	I/VII / Dark	Fake Out lead, hyper offense	You want raw bulk
4	Meowstic (M)	VI / Psychic	Prankster screens/Trick Room support	You want a attacker, not support
3	Raikou & Zeraora	II / VII / Electric	Special power, raw Speed	You need a Fire, Water or Ground answer
2	Meowscarada	IX / Grass-Dark	Fast Protean pivots	You want a bulky wall
1	Incineroar	VII / Fire-Dark	Every VGC doubles core	You’re playing singles only

12. Skitty — The Adorable Floor

Skitty is the baseline every other cat Pokemon on this list clears. Base stats of 50/45/45/35/35/50 [3] put it below most first-stage Pokemon, and its abilities — Cute Charm, and the Normalize ability it shares only with Delcatty [3] — are built for gimmick teams, not damage. Normalize turns every move Skitty uses into a Normal-type move, which sounds interesting until you remember Skitty’s Attack stat is 45.

New players: catch one for the Dex and move on. Competitive players: there’s nothing here for you.

11. Meowth — The Icon With Nothing to Back It Up

Meowth is the most famous Pokemon on this list and the one with the least to show for it in a fight. Its design is genuinely clever — the gold koban coin on its forehead references the Maneki-neko good-luck cat and the Japanese idiom “neko ni koban” (“a coin wasted on a cat”), and series director Junichi Masuda has said the design was partly inspired by his own pet cat [1]. That coin is also the basis for Meowth’s signature move, Pay Day, which drops usable currency after battle [1]. Its stat line — 40/45/35/40/40/90 [1] — gives it decent Speed and nothing else. Own it for what it means to the franchise, not what it does on your team.

10. Glameow — All Speed, No Follow-Through

Glameow’s 85 base Speed [12] is its whole personality — everything else sits in the 37-55 range. It’s a “Catty Pokemon” by classification [12], which is about as honest as a Pokedex entry gets: this is a stepping stone to Purugly, not a Pokemon you build around. Own Tempo is the one ability worth noting — it blocks confusion outright, which matters more in-game against move-spam gimmicks than it ever will in a ranked format.

9. Espurr — Contained Potential

Espurr’s own Pokedex fiction explains why it’s ranked this low: its psychic power is sealed behind its ears specifically to stop it from leaking out [13]. Base stats of 62/48/54/63/60/68 [13] are unremarkable on their own, but Espurr is a means to an end — nobody keeps one unevolved. Its value is entirely in what it becomes, and the gap between Espurr’s numbers and Meowstic’s (below) is one of the bigger single-evolution jumps on this list.

Comparison of three cat Pokemon evolution lines shown as three-stage progressions — Three evolution lines, three very different power ceilings.

8. Delcatty — The Completionist’s Cat

Delcatty is what happens when you spend a Moon Stone on Skitty: base stats jump to 70/65/65/55/55/90 [11], with Speed specifically bumped from 70 to 90 starting in Generation VII [11]. That’s a real stat total (400), but Cute Charm and Normalize still don’t scale into competitive relevance. Unlike Pokemon that need a trade to evolve, Delcatty only needs a Moon Stone — for the full rundown of species that require an actual trade, see our trade evolution guide.

7. Purugly — The Bulk Nobody Uses

Purugly’s stat total (452, from 71/82/64/64/59/112 [4]) is the best of any pre-Legendary Pokemon on this list below rank 6, and Thick Fat gives it a genuine defensive niche by halving damage from Fire- and Ice-type moves [4]. The problem is that “genuine niche” and “tournament-relevant” aren’t the same thing — Purugly shows up on lower-ladder teams and almost nowhere else.

6. Perrserker — The Viking Nobody Expected

Perrserker’s hardened fur forms the shape of a horned Viking helmet, and it still incorporates a coin motif into the design — a direct callback to Meowth two generations removed [8]. With base stats of 70/110/100/50/60/50 [8] and access to Tough Claws or the bulk-friendly Battle Armor, it’s built for Trick Room: high Attack, workable Defense, and a Speed stat low enough to go last on purpose. Outside a Trick Room core, that same low Speed makes it dead weight.

5. Persian — The One Underrated Pick

Regular Persian is a fast Normal-type with 115 base Speed [2] and not much else going for it. Alolan Persian is the version worth knowing: swapping to Dark-type and learning Fake Out at level 11 [2] made it a real suicide-lead pick in VGC 2017 and 2019, running Fake Out, Parting Shot, and Foul Play behind a Focus Sash — Fur Coat, not Technician, was the ability that actually saw play, cutting incoming physical damage so the set could survive to open a match on its own terms. It’s dated now, but it has more real tournament history than anything ranked below it.

4. Meowstic — The Support Specialist

Male Meowstic’s hidden ability, Prankster, gives priority to status moves — Light Screen, Reflect, Trick Room, whatever the team needs first [5]. With base stats of 74/48/76/83/81/104 [5], it isn’t built to attack; it’s built to set up before the other team can react, which is exactly what Trick Room support cores want from a fourth or fifth slot. Female Meowstic gets Competitive instead of Prankster [5], so if you’re building around the ability, the coin flip matters — check the gender before you commit.

3. Raikou & Zeraora — The Legendary and Mythical Spotlight

Here’s the honest caveat: Raikou and Zeraora are closer to tiger Pokemon than house-cat Pokemon. Both are built on the Raiju, a Japanese lightning creature “sometimes represented as a cat” in folklore [10], but Raikou’s design leans harder on storm and sabertooth-cat imagery than on anything resembling a domestic feline [14], while Zeraora blends both domestic and wild cat with oni and kamaitachi influences [10]. They earn their spot on a cat-Pokemon list through mythology, not through looking like a housecat.

What they do bring is raw power. Raikou hits 90/85/75/115/100/115 [14] and was a legitimate special attacker across multiple generations. Zeraora’s 88/112/75/102/80/143 [10] gives it 143 base Speed — one of the fastest Electric-types ever released — turning it into a real sweeper whenever a format’s rules let it in. Both are also a practical answer if Flying-type threats are giving your team trouble; see our Flying type weaknesses guide for the full counter breakdown.

Two legendary and mythical electric feline Pokemon facing each other under a stormy sky — Raikou and Zeraora: more Raiju legend than housecat.

2. Meowscarada — The Magician With Real Numbers

Meowscarada’s design commits fully to a stage-magician lynx — diamond markings for a Harlequin look, a jester-style mask, and a signature move (Flower Trick) that’s built around the idea of pulling flowers out of thin air [9]. It backs that up with 76/110/70/81/70/123 [9] and access to Protean, which changes its type to match whatever move it uses. That combination of 123 base Speed and a Dark-typing tucked under Grass is why it sees genuine competitive play as a fast pivot, not just a starter-line curiosity.

1. Incineroar — The One That Actually Wins

Incineroar isn’t the fastest, flashiest, or most “cat-like” Pokemon on this list — its 60 base Speed [6] is the slowest of any entry ranked above Purugly. It’s ranked first because it’s the cat Pokemon that actually shows up when it counts: Incineroar ranked #2 in Pokemon VGC 2026 Regulation I usage at a 40% pick rate, with Fake Out on 99.9% of sets, Knock Off on 95.9%, and Parting Shot on 55.6% — all backed by an Intimidate ability rate of 99.86% [7].

That combination — Intimidate to weaken incoming physical attackers, Fake Out to flinch and tempo-break on turn one, Parting Shot to switch out while still debuffing — is the same core that’s kept Incineroar a fixture in VGC doubles since its Intimidate hidden ability first became available, not a one-regulation fluke. The design leans into it too: Incineroar is built as a professional-wrestling heel, with a flame-formed belt shaped like a championship belt and a Pokedex category that says as much [6]. If you’re picking one cat Pokemon to actually build a team around, this is it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the most powerful cat Pokemon?

It depends what “powerful” means. For raw stats and Speed, Zeraora’s 143 base Speed and Raikou’s 115/115 Special Attack/Speed spread [10][14] are the strongest individual numbers on this list. For actual tournament results, Incineroar wins — a 40% VGC usage rate [7] beats raw stats every time a game comes down to who controls the first two turns.

Are Raikou and Zeraora really cat Pokemon?

Loosely. Both trace back to the Raiju legend, which folklore sometimes depicts as a cat and sometimes as a tiger or weasel [10]. Raikou’s own design documentation leans further toward storm and sabertooth-cat imagery than toward a recognizable housecat [14] — they belong on this list for their mythology, not because either one looks like it curls up on a couch.

Which cat Pokemon should a new player start with?

Sprigatito’s evolved form, Meowscarada, is the strongest all-rounder if you’re picking a starter — it’s fast, flexible with Protean, and viable well past the early game [9]. If you just want a Pokemon that’s easy to catch and fun to raise without worrying about a competitive ceiling, Skitty or Meowth do the job — just don’t expect either to carry a serious team. A new player who wants to feel the difference firsthand can catch a Skitty and an Espurr in the same playthrough and compare how each one performs at the same level; the gap in usable output is obvious well before either one is fully evolved.

For more rankings built the same way — stats and real usage data first, hype second — see our pseudo-legendary Pokemon ranking.

Sources

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.