Supernatural: 13 Most Powerful Demons, Ranked By Intelligence

Intelligence should be considered a whole separate power on Supernatural, as even immense beings like God and the Darkness have lost out to lesser enemies by being outsmarted. Demons have been shown to survive this long mainly because they’re smarter than angels and other creatures.

These are the most powerful demons on the show, but they’ve been ranked in order of their intelligence. This means that while a certain demon might easily have more powers than another, they can still be listed lower because they’re just not as intelligent. The rankings might surprise some fans.

Updated on August 16th, 2022 by Amanda Bruce: Dozens of demons come and go over the course of Supernatural. Most of them, however, don’t even have names. They come into small towns, do some damage, and are sent packing by the main characters. If a demon is named over the course of the show, the audience knows that they likely have staying power. Those that manage to outsmart their enemies over and over again are the ones that stuck around the longest. That intelligence also often coincides with plenty of power.

13 Meg

The audience never learns this demon’s real name as she simply takes on the name of the woman whose body she inhabits early in the show. When it comes to the most powerful demons in Supernatural, Meg is at the lower end of the spectrum. She’s not commanding whole armies or using extensive power to get things done. She is, however, using her intelligence.

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She was trained by Alastair himself. While she was incredibly loyal to Lucifer, Meg also understood the need to survive to get what she wanted. That meant if she had to team up with the Winchesters to get back at Crowley, she would. It also meant that if she needed to work with them against the Leviathans to make sure there was still a world for demons to inhabit, she’d do that too. Ultimately, she sacrificed herself in a battle against Crowley to give the Winchesters a fighting chance later.

12 Ruby

Ruby isn’t the most powerful demon on her own. Like Meg, she isn’t controlling vast armies, but she is incredibly smart and knows how to play a long con. Ruby fools everyone into thinking she’s one of the good guys, even the Winchesters.

Ruby’s power lies in her ability to manipulate others. She managed to get Sam to break one of the seals that would bring Lucifer back to Earth, after all. Ruby had a nearly fool-proof plan early in the show, and she enacted it pretty flawlessly. The ease with which Ruby betrayed Sam Winchester made her one of the most hated characters in the show.

11 Samhain

Being the only one of his kind, and with his release being one of the 66 seals holding Lucifer, Samhain was easily one of the most legendary demons ever created. His powers seemed to be greater than that of angels, as angels were shown to fear him.

As far as intelligence goes, though, Samhain wasn’t all that bright. He was smart to the extent of having henchman do the deed of releasing him while he was in Hell but other than that it seems his pride was greater. Rather than escape when he saw Sam was immune to his powers, Samhain attempted to fight, resulting in him being sent back to Hell.

10 Cain

Knights of Hell were among the highest levels of demons one can find, but none of them displayed much wit. For Cain, it might be because he was powered by the Mark which housed the Darkness, meaning he didn’t need to do much strategic planning since he was so powerful.

While he was intelligent enough to devise a way to hide from beings from both Hell and Heaven for centuries without being detected, Cain made a silly move to fight Dean. Rather than realizing that Dean would have a plan to fight him, Cain went all guns blazing, ending with his death at the hands of Dean Winchester.

9 Abaddon

Abaddon was one of the first human souls to ally with Lucifer, apprenticed under Cain, and quickly rose to become one of the most powerful demons in Hell as a result. One of the Knights of Hell, Abaddon had access to a pretty great ability: time travel.

Abaddon used time travel to get rid of enemies, which was both a huge ability to have, but also a smart way to use it. It meant that Abaddon rarely had to deal with people getting in the way. She’s got a head for strategy that rivals few demons in the show.

8 Dean

While Dean didn’t display any outright intelligent moments in his time as a Knight of Hell, he did have some tactical sense in him. This was seen when he scoped out Cole Trenton when the latter tried to attack, as Dean would play around with him to uncover if Cole had some tricks up his sleeve.

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Since he was a Knight of Hell, Dean was the most powerful demon active at the time, and he knew this well enough to challenge Crowley to make a move against him, having anticipated no fight back. Finally, Dean was also smart enough to escape the binds Sam had on him when he realized the demon cure had only partially worked.

7 Ramiel

Being a Prince of Hell, Ramiel could beat any angel other than the highest ones, and fighting against other beings was laughable to him; he certainly did cackle when confronted by the Winchesters. His smarts came from his knowledge of weaponry.

Although Ramiel wanted to live on his own and didn’t prefer to engage in fights, he was intelligent enough to keep weapons of extreme power like the Lance of Michael and the Colt in his possession. This was probably done to stave off any potential enemies, although he did meet his death with the Lance due to Ramiel’s arrogance overcoming his smarts.

6 Alastair

There was more to the Grand Torturer of Hell than meets the eye, as Alastair showed he was more than just a sadistic demon out to dole out a lot of pain. Fans know he was extremely powerful, as Alastair handily beat Castiel and had no fear of angels while being one of the first demons created.

However, he also relied on his intelligence, which was seen when he assumed the forms of well-to-do men to throw off any suspicions that might have come his way to revealing his true identity. Alastair kept his mind working while under torture, as he was able to escape his trap by silently manipulating the environment.

5 Dagon

If there was one demon who knew how to utilize her wits with her powers then it would absolutely have to be Dagon. The Prince of Hell could’ve captured Kelly Kline all by herself as she was much more powerful than angels and whatever the Men of Letters had to throw at her, but employed the use of strategy.

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Dagon manipulated Kelly by pretending to be a friend while actually leading her on toward Lucifer. When Kelly caught wind of her act, Dagon gathered herself to find the location of the heavenly portal and stage an ambush of the angels to capture Kelly by utilizing her teleportation powers and killing touch. It was only because of Jack’s empowerment that Castiel was able to beat her.

4 Lilith

Stealth also falls under the intelligence range since it requires the thinking capacity to dupe those aware of you. Lilith was a master in this aspect, even when she returned a decade after her death. She was able to devise a plan to have Ruby pretend to be Sam’s ally, all to lead him to open up the final seal of Lucifer’s cage.

Lilith expertly fooled Sam and Dean into believing her plans were something other than what she actually had in mind, and would assume the forms of young girls to move into any setting and influence proceedings without being caught. She falls a little lower, though, because of her move to intimidate Michael, which led to her death.

3 Asmodeus

Going from nobody to nightmare after having once been the “runt of the litter” of the Princes of Hell, Asmodeus was easily the most resourceful of the bunch. Despite having been much weaker than the rest of his kind, Asmodeus showed why being smart pays off by becoming the strongest.

He did this by trapping the Archangel Gabriel as his prisoner, consuming pieces of his grace to empower himself to insane levels – Asmodeus even overpowered his creator Lucifer this way! And it was only at the hands of Gabriel himself that he died, not by any other means.

2 Azazel

Nobody can argue against the intelligence level of a being who devised plans centuries ahead of time and had them be realized. Azazel, being the most loyal Prince of Hell in Lucifer’s ranks, had multiple schemes in motion, all of which worked one way or another.

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He had a slew of demons live around Sam his whole life without him realizing it, he uncovered the opening point to Lucifer’s cage; Azazel hunted down the parents of the Special Children and came up with the plan to bring them together 22 years later. Along with that, he also made a deal for John’s death with the intention of making John break the first seal to the cage.

1 Crowley

Yes, he’s easily the weakest in terms of power compared to most other demons and has been responsible for more jokes on Supernatural than anything else, but Crowley still ranks first. That’s because, unlike the other demons, Crowley was so smart that he always came out the victor.

Crowley even went so far as to outsmart Amara, Dick Roman, and Lucifer, while managing to draw the powers of God and other weapons like the Demon tablet. There was no demon ever created that could beat Crowley in a game of wits, and he even took his own life rather than be killed. For this reason, Crowley might be altogether the most powerful demon on the show.

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