Quaquaval is a Water & Fighting type, is the final evolution of the Water starter Quaxly, and has a pretty good design. Just barely edges out Meowscarada and Skeledirge as my favorite design for the paldea starter final evolutions, but like Meowscarada, I'm not a huge crazy fan on Quaquaval's shiny. Now, when it comes to battling, Quaquaval is probably the worst of the starter final evos, but it's still pretty good, I mean it came in clutch a few times during my violet playthrough on my team. Quaquaval still has okay enough stats, decent enough abilities and a decent enough movepool. In general, I absolutely love Quaquaval, and would happily use it again in future on a playthrough team, but I absolutely love the other six pokemon left way too much to rank them lower than this starter.
Pokemon Left:
Ceruledge
Annihilape
Clodsire
Great Tusk
Chien-Pao
Iron Valiant
Kingambit is a Dark & Steel type, is the evolution of Bisharp, and has a pretty great design, alongside an amazing shiny, can never go wrong with a blue shiny color scheme. As far as battling goes, Kingambit can do pretty good with it having good abilities, good stats, and a pretty good movepool. Only downside would maybe be its 4x weakness to fighting, but you can just tera into a ghost type or something to be immune to that 4x weakness, so really there's not too heavy of a drawback. Overall, I love Kingambit greatly, and was pretty hype to see Bisharp get an evolution, although definitely was not expected whatsoever. It's just when I looked at all the pokemon remaining on my ranking, I considered all the factors, and when it comes down to it, Kingambit I just don't think is as strong of a stand out, which is why I chose to rank it out here for eighth.
Pokemon Left:
Quaquaval
Ceruledge
Annihilape
Clodsire
Great Tusk
Chien-Pao
Iron Valiant
Meowscarada is a Grass & Dark type, is the final evolution of the Grass starter Sprigatito, and has a pretty good design, definitely my most favorite design of the Sprigatito evolution line by a decent margin, but I do wish it had a better shiny. However, Meowscarada is probably the better battler of the Paldea starters, with it having a good movepool, pretty good abilities and pretty good stats. Flower Trick always getting a crit is pretty dang good for both competitive and in game, and if you're able to have the hidden ability of Protean, that'll help out greatly as well, even with that ability getting nerfed this generation. Overall, I definitely love Meowscarada, but it's not my favorite of the paldea starter final evolutions, and I just think I prefer the other eight I have remaining a little bit more than this.
Pokemon Left:
Quaquaval
Ceruledge
Annihilape
Clodsire
Kinggambit
Great Tusk
Chien-Pao
Iron Valiant
Flutter Mane is a Ghost & Fairy type, is the past paradox of Misdreavus, and has a very cool design, alongside a pretty nice shiny. I would say I prefer design of Flutter Mane to original Misdreavus by a good margin, although I love Misdreavus' design as well. However, when it comes to battles, Flutter Mane is probably the best paradox to use both in game and competitively, with it having great stats, a great ability in Protosynthesis to allow itself to boost up its great stats even further, and a very good movepool. This was in a similar boat to Houndstone and Palafin where it got banned to ubers pretty quickly because of how powerful it was. I absolutely adore Flutter Mane, but it's definitely not my most favorite of the paldea paradox pokemon, and I was extremely close to taking it out at 12th/11th over putting it in my top 10, which it's because of those reasons that I had to take out this prehistoric ghost for 10th.
Pokemon Left:
Meowscarada
Quaquaval
Ceruledge
Annihilape
Clodsire
Kinggambit
Great Tusk
Chien-Pao
Iron Valiant
Skeledirge is a Fire & Ghost type, is the final evolution of the Fire starter Fuecoco, and has a great design, but is still one I like least of the starter final evolutions for Paldea. Skeledirge is definitely great in playthroughs though, with it having pretty good stats, good abilities, and a great movepool. Torch Song is absolutely great for in game getting special attack boosts each time you use it, which can make it fairly easy to sweep teams with Skeledirge later game in a Paldea playthrough, and I think it's because of that one move that makes Skeledirge best to use in a Paldea playthrough, as well as it also doing not half bad competitively. Overall, I definitely love Skeledirge greatly, and it's the next starter I plan on using when I play through the Paldea region again, but it's just not a top 10 pokemon to me, which is why it got the spot right outside my top 10.
Pokemon Left:
Meowscarada
Quaquaval
Ceruledge
Annihilape
Clodsire
Kinggambit
Great Tusk
Flutter Mane
Chien-Pao
Iron Valiant
Armarouge is the evolution of Charcadet if playing Pokemon Scarlet, has a pretty good design, but a terrible shiny. I think only thing that changes in its shiny is its eyebrows turning blue basically. However, when it comes to battling, Armarouge can do alright since it has decent enough stats, and a pretty nice movepool. Only downside to Armarouge with battles would maybe be its abilities in Flash Fire & Weak Armor, but they can still be useful on occassions. Overall, I definitely still love Armarouge, but I've always been a bigger fan of the other Charcadet evolution still remaining, and I just don't think Armarouge has anything great that makes it stand out amongst the crowd when it comes to the pokemon left on my ranking.
Pokemon Left:
Meowscarada
Skeledirge
Quaquaval
Ceruledge
Annihilape
Clodsire
Kinggambit
Great Tusk
Flutter Mane
Chien-Pao
Iron Valiant
