The final phase of Round 1 is upon us and the final 16 starting Pokemon are revealed. This round has an organic feel with a hint of earth tones considering we’re now in the Earth Bracket. This bracket is named for the Earth Badge which is the final badge you receive in the Kanto Region prior to making your way up Victory Road and fighting the Elite 4! I think it’s fair to say that the Pokemon in this bracket do have their various connections to Earth and Nature. We’ve got otters and plants and boxers and bugs. There’s even a gourd! To me, this is most interesting bracket yet! Is it for you? Tell us in the comments below with your votes!

For information on the overall polling and how these Pokemon were picked, check out the first and original poll for this March Madness Bracket found here.


Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

Vote for the Pokemon that you think should win the matchup. Please vote on every matchup.
Please cast your votes in the following format, bolding the Pokemon that you choose to advance:
Pidgey vs. Raticate
Sandslash vs. Dratini

Polls are open until Sunday, March 20th, 2016 at 11:59 PM EST. Gotta vote em' all!

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard




Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
I gained an Ivysaur appreciation from SSB Brawl.

Leafeon vs. Articuno
Not crazy about either, but Articuno was neat back in the day.

Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Never loved Hitmonchan, Gallade seems okay.

Heracross vs. Swampert
Heracross was one of my favorites! A big strong bug-type, with an actually great bug-type move (Megahorn). Too bad it was fighting type also, making it weak to psychics, the most stupidly overpowered type in the first two generations.

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Never heard of Shedinja so I looked it up, cool concept so I'm down with it.

Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Another legendary bird vs. Eevee-lution? Again, don't care for either all that much, but Vaporeon was a popular opponent in Pokemon Stadium for its high HP and moveset flexibility.

Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Dunno about either, but Gourgeist seems neat.

Gengar vs. Charizard
Silly/sinister ghosts are cooler than dragons.

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

Arcanine is really neat, and Ivysaur might be my all-time second-favorite Pokemon.

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

The final phase of Round 1. This was a fun bracket to vote on. Initially I have to give it up for Oshawott because he’s one of the cutest Pokemon ever. Ivysaur is the weakest version of its evolutionary line. Leafeon appeals to me as perhaps my favorite of the Eevee line of Pokemon. Articuno is great too but imagining what Leafeon would be like in real life makes me want one real bad. Gallade is a pretty neat Pokemon to look at but I prefer the classic style and premise of the Jackie Chan-influenced Hitmonchan. With Heracross against Swampert I had to go with the latter just on the grounds of how badass he looks in his pose. He looks like he’ll mess you up. It was a tough call for me to be honest.



Arcanine is a fire-dog and a more strong-looking version of its cuter evolutionary start. It gets my edge despite Shedinja being a really neat concept for a Pokemon and the way Shedinja evolves if I recall is really unique. Lugia and Vaporeon are both not big hits with me but despite, I think the big ol Lugia gets my pick. Between essentially a pumpkin and a poison-looking frog, I think I want to give it to the bizarre and weird Gourgeist. Lastly, an epic battle indeed. I love both of these Pokemon but in the end I feel Gengar deserves the vote on grounds of how evil and mischievous he appears and his fun-to-use move-set. Dream Eater and Destiny Bond anyone?

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Lord Ivysaur!

Leafeon vs. Articuno
For some reason I hate Leafeon's name more than all the other Eevee evolutions. Looks neat though.

Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Gardevoir and Gallade are awesome! I often love having both at once on my team.

Heracross vs. Swampert
This was a tough one, but Ash's Heracross in the anime gives it the edge!

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Arcanine is AWESOME but I have a very soft spot for Pokemon that evolve in neato ways. Shedinja is a dead, discarded exoskeleton! What a wacky idea.

Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Man, this series is making me seem like an Eevee-hater, but I really like Lugia's design.

Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Toxicroak is gross. Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist are floating ghost pumpkins, so they win.

Gengar vs. Charizard
Gengar is one of my top, top, top favourites. Why did you do this to me?!

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

This was a tough bracket. A lot of decisions came down to choosing between Pokemon that I like a lot.

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard
Fletchling vs. Nobodymon

Honestly I didn't know a bunch of them, so I either picked the one I knew or whoever had an interesting-er name!

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

Pokemon Shuffle has made me like Heracross and Gengar a lot more than I used to, so it was hard to vote against them. I also prefer the design of Arcanine, but I like the concept behind Shedinja better. The only other tough match-up for me was Gourgeist and Toxicroak, but I ultimately went with the latter just because I tend to dislike Pokemon designs where the creature's actual head is concealed and a big fake one is the first thing you see when you look at it.

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur
Leafeon vs. Articuno
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan
Heracross vs. Swampert

Arcanine vs. Shedinja
Lugia vs. Vaporeon
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak
Gengar vs. Charizard

@J.K. Riki

Fletchling vs. Nobodymon

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur - He's a big plant man, and plants rock
Leafeon vs. Articuno - I hate things with leaves on them (..)
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan - He's gotta wear gloves; keep it safe
Heracross vs. Swampert - Swampert makes me thinking of Swampass, and thats good for no one

Arcanine vs. Shedinja - He's a fire dog, and a more strong-looking version of his cuter evolutionary start
Lugia vs. Vaporeon - Lugia sounds like Loogie. I'm not voting for spit.
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak - This thing is awesome, probably drooling all over the place with poisonous spit. RAD.
Gengar vs. Charizard - Haunter advanced, so I'm not gonna vote for Gengar. Lucky Charizard..


--THIS is the Top 64? I nominated some guys that didn't make it, and they're way better than stupid Bidoof.

EDIT- Seriously, brackets should've been 256 large and started back in November..

I thought about if it would have been feasible to go through… all 720 or so. But man that'd be a lot of work. 256 would have been easier but not 64 easy (and even this is a bit of work…especially because I don't have internet at my house right now).

Who do you feel should have been in the top 64? Got a top 3?

@Mr_Mustache
Did you vote for Malamar in Bidoof vs. Malamar?

Sigh. Malamar deserves so much more and we've failed him.
I'm pretty darn sure that silly rodent won.

@ploot

Don't go back to count! We'll be revealing the results soon. I think the next round I might combine into two so that we still have eight things to vote for. This'll help this all go quicker and we don't need to stretch it out too much. The finals will still be pretty slow and small though.

@DrFinkelstein

That didn't make it?

Machop. Machoke. Machamp.


We should vote on all of the Pokemon in a massive tourney starting in July. It should only take 8 months.


@ploot

I voted for Malamar after the fact via PM, and cited your reasons as my reasons. So while Tim costs his guys votes with spider pictures, you win your guy votes with reasoning.

My pictures are reasoning. Spider eats crappy bird.

Also, Spider has cool design. Spider is electric. Bird is boring and sucks.

What more do you need?

So many of the Pokemon I voted for at the start didn't make it in, which was to be expected, but man are some cool Pokemon missing from this March Madness, but all well. Plenty of Pokemon to go around.

Oshawott vs. Ivysaur - As stated in the last round, this is my favourite line of starters. I can't not vote for it.
Leafeon vs. Articuno - Best Eeveelution vs Worst Bird? Easy pick.
Gallade vs. Hitmonchan - Gallade just looks cool, while Hitmonchan is kinda boring
Heracross vs. Swampert - I know I voted for Heracross as one of my favourites, but I wish I had put Swampert down as well because I do really love Swampert.

Arcanine vs. Shedinja - Still one of my favourite gimmick Pokemon
Lugia vs. Vaporeon - Another Eeveelution? Correction, another GREAT Eeveelution
Gourgeist vs. Toxicroak - Always loved Toxicroak.
Gengar vs. Charizard - Haunter was one of my favourite Pokemon from my original Pokemon Blue team back in the day, no way I can't not vote for Gengar


Also, on the whole "Fletchling is the best" debate I have only this to say.
Fletchling vs. Nobodymon vs. Talonflame

@Shadowlink

Bird is adorable and everyone loves him. Spiders are icky, and giant, electric spiders are Australian.

What people need is a bird they can believe in, not something that will crawl over them while they sleep and lay its eggs in their ears. Yeah, think about that image. That's what happens if you vote Garteranchula or whatever it's called. Think about it while you try to sleep tonight. Then vote Fletchling, the bird Pokemon that watches over you at night to prevent spider-ear-eggs. Thank you, Fletchling. You truly are king of kings.

@Pokefreak911

Talonflame is cool, but Fletchling is so cute you could curl up with it and die. And cute-to-death beats cool in my book.

@Pokefreak911

Gallade looks cool? It's some Wannabe-Ninja-Gumby!