The "Gods" of Pokemon Speedrunning

Somebody genuinely asked me to address this, so I thought I'd have some fun with it.

So somebody months back made a joke about how they could see werster, Gunner, Exarion and myself in much the same light as the "Four Gods of Melee"; my chat was talking about Melee at the time, and I thought it was funny so I went along with it.  I know I have an ego, but c'mon guys, I'm not that conceited.  I don't actually think only four people are good at pushing buttons in a children's game.

Anyway, Tyrant and I talked about this a few weeks ago after I joked about adding a "fifth god" and we jokingly appropriated Pokemon speedrunners to Melee players and this is what we came away with:

Exarion = Armada.  No explanation needed, just dominant in everything he does.
werster = Hungrybox.  I don't remember why, probably just a placement thing.
Gunner = PPMD.  Because he died.  He's back now, but at the time, he was dead, so PPMD Kreygasm
Keizaron = Mango.  All the America loving I (sarcastically) do, being super inconsistent compared to the other "Gods" and having the biggest ego (it's mostly fake, I promise).
crafted = m2k.  Emotionless robot that performs at a top level.

Then we wanted to include pokeguy and Tyrant on the list, so we came up with:

pokeguy = Leffen.  God Slayer.
Tyrant = Axe.  Because he's talented and cool, but not quite up there in terms of results.

Now, let's get into some numbers with these 7 players.

WR count at the time of the joke: Exarion (5) + werster (5) > Keizaron (3) > Gunner (1) > crafted + pokeguy + Tyrant (0)
- I may be misremembering that because I don't recall the glitched scene at the time.  pokeguy may have had a glitched record and Tyrant may have had his record as well.

Current WR count: pokeguy (6) > Exarion + werster (5) > crafted (4) > Keizaron + Tyrant (1) > Gunner (l0l)
- As it stands now, there's a clear top 4 in terms of current record count.  pokeguy was at 5 and I was at 2 very briefly today.

# of Generations WR'd In (Current or Past): werster [1-5] + Keizaron [1-4, 7] (5) > crafted [2-5] (4) > Exarion [1-3] + Gunner [1-3] (3) > pokeguy [1-2] + Tyrant [3-4] (2)
- What's interesting about this is nobody on this list has had gen 6, and only one of us has had gen 7.  6 out of 7 runners have had a record in gens 1-3 at some point in time.  No runner has had a record in every generation, past or current, and as far as I'm aware, even when PSR was first formed, nobody had a record in all available generations (up to 5, I believe).

Now in terms of actual rankings, this is tricky.  Speedrunning isn't actually like competitive games, so ranking based on results can only go so far because any amount of luck can help or hurt any runner.  My rankings here are based on past and present performances, including number of records, length of time taken grinding top times, overall execution level, so on and so forth.  I'll also list what I think are strengths and weaknesses.  > indicates how much higher; in this case, 1 is barely and 2 is standard

1. Exarion - Clear cut #1.  Routing is excellent, attitude and approach is for the most part excellent, execution is almost always clean and almost always top 2 minimum.  Has a tendency to knock out times nearly effortlessly, which sometimes leads to lopsided expectations on the feasibility of some goals.
>
2. werster - Former #1 until Exarion came.  Routing is excellent, attitude is rough, approach is fine, execution is almost always clean and almost always top 2 minimum.  Really quick (whether intentional or not) to dismiss a lot of routing ideas unless he personally does it, which is both handy for knowledge's sake and a slight detriment for quick adaptability to route changes.  Is somehow always able to pick up right where he left off even if he takes a large hiatus from things.
>>
3. crafted - It was very difficult for me to decide between pokeguy and crafted for #3, but ultimately I chose crafted because of his pedigree; he's spread across more generations than pokeguy is currently.  Execution is usually of a high level, attitude and approach is fantastic.  Not too much comes to mind for a negative, to be honest.  Just a great, balanced runner.
>
4. pokeguy - He's just great.  Really strong player, execution is on point a vast majority of the time, attitude and approach is a little rough around the edges.  I'd honestly rank him higher if he tackled more generations so I could further assess his abilities, which is why he's 4 instead of 3.
>
5. Keizaron - Alright, hear me out here.  I'm not putting myself over Gunner just to pick on him or to enforce the "we hate each other" meme or anything.  I *barely* put myself above him right now for a few reasons: # of gens WR count, current WR count and current activity.  Routing is strong but not the strongest, attitude is hot and cold (can be great, can be awful), approach is hot and cold (depending on what game/generation, can be great, can be awful).  Execution can be strong but is mostly above average and is very much dependent on the game.  Improv in tight situations is probably the highest of the group, though.
>
6. Gunner - Routing is basically non-existent.  Some idea contributions but mostly a ghost.  Attitude is great, approach is quite bad.  Execution is really really good until pressure situations happen, then it can become human very quickly.  Probably has the most patience out of this whole list, though, which is a great trait to have.  Prone to die and disappear for large chunks of time, which causes a lot of minor derusts and slows down progress.
>>
7. Tyrant - Routing is solid, attitude is essentially a much less angry Keizaron, approach is rough and tumble because of the amount of game switches, which is a weakness.  Has slowed down in recent times but was really bad months ago.  Execution is above average most times and can be fantastic other times.  Has a ton of potential to move up the list.

If you read through this, kudos to you.  Hope it was a fun read.