The Most Powerful Jedi In Star Wars

Ki-Adi was a Cerean Jedi Master who served as a member of the Jedi Council before the start of the Clone Wars. During the Clone Wars, Mundi fought in many battles, and was the only Jedi to survive a battle with General Grievous that left five other Jedi dead. At one point, Obi-Wan Kenobi was thought to be dead, and during this time, Ki-Adi Mundi served as Anakin Skywalker's Jedi Master. During the Clone Wars, Skywalker and Mundi had to face a huge force of droids on Geonosis, and Ki-Adi ended up destroying more droids than Anakin—which greatly impressed his apprentice. Mundi would survive many difficult battles, but was eventually cut down by his own Clone Troops when they acted on Order 66.

If you're only familiar with the Star Wars movies, you may only know Qui-Gon as Obi-Wan's master and the Jedi who discovered Anakin Skywalker. But Qui-Gon deserves recognition for much more than that. Having studied under Count Dooku, Qui-Gon mastered the art of lightsaber battle, particularly the fourth form known as Ataru. This hard-hitting style of combat is capable of decisively ending a fight quickly, but also has weaknesses in defense. Darth Maul took advantage of those weaknesses when he killed Jinn in close combat. Despite his untimely death, Qui-Gon Jinn's true power was not revealed until after he was killed. He had spent a good portion of his life studying the nature of the Force and the possibility of merging with it upon death. He became the first Jedi—in the current canon, at least—to do so, returning as a voice to Master Yoda. His teachings after death allowed both Yoda and Obi-Wan to return as Force Ghosts after their passing. Without his tutelage, Luke Skywalker would never have been able to complete his training.

A Jedi Master during the Clone Wars, Quinlan Vos had a unique Force ability that allowed him to see visions and memories of individuals by handling something they had touched. He went on an undercover mission to the planet Dathomir, where he trained with Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress. The pair attempted to assassinate Count Dooku, but were foiled when faced with the combined might of Dooku and General Grievous. Dooku captured Quinlan and used his influence in the Dark Side to force him to be his apprentice. Later, Count Dooku would turn on his apprentice and try to kill him, but Ventress blocked the Sith Lord's Force Lightning with her own body, sacrificing herself. Vos then fought Dooku in one-on-one combat, defeating him and freeing himself from the Sith influence. While he had an opportunity to kill the Count, he decided not to, and instead left to rejoin the Jedi Order. Quinlan was one of the few Jedi to ever defeat Dooku in combat, and in the Legends/Expanded Universe canon, he also managed to survive Order 66 and made his hideout on the Wookie planet of Kashyyyk.

If you're unfamiliar with the Expanded Universe material, the name Nomi Sunrider may not ring a bell. In the old Jedi Order, occasionally Jedi Masters were allowed to marry—though it was quite uncommon and frowned upon by the Council. Thousands of years before the Clone Wars, Nomi was the wife of Andur Sunrider, a Jedi trainee. The couple also had an infant daughter, Vima. When the family relocated to another planet to continue Andur's training, they were ambushed by Hutt gang members. Andur was slain, but Nomi picked up her husband's lightsaber and used it to kill the attackers and defend her daughter. She would go on to become a powerful Jedi Master herself, following her husband's path. Nomi is so high on our list because of her extreme Force abilities, including the art of battle meditation. During the Great Sith War, she single-handedly severed Sith apprentice Qel-Droma from the Force. Soon after, hundreds of Jedi descended upon Yavin 4, where Sith leader Exar-Kun was hidden. Nomi used her battle meditation to guide a gigantic sheet of light-side energy around the planet, obliterating the Sith Temple and bringing an end to the war. She'd later go on to be the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, and did much work rebuilding the Order before her death many years later.

Perhaps the character with the most affiliations on our list, Revan has a wild history. He first served as Jedi Knight before starting an internal movement within the Order because of his outrage over their refusal to intervene in the Mandalorian Wars. After he proved the Mandalorians were responsible for the genocide of the Cathar people, the Order grudgingly agreed to allow his "Revanchist" faction to continue their intervention. Revan visited a Sith Temple on Malachor V and began to be seduced by the Dark Side; he finally defeated the leader of the Mandalorians in single combat, but the war didn't end completely until Revan drew the remaining Mandalorian forces into a trap near Malachor, activating a superweapon that destroyed their remaining fleet along with many Republic ships and much of the planet itself.

Following the war, Revan went in search of the Sith responsible for starting the conflict, but was drawn into a trap by the Sith Emperor. He and his companion Malak went in search of the powerful Star Forge, and by time they located it, they'd broken free of the Emperor's compulsion and declared themselves the founders of a new Sith Empire. His later actions would kick off the Jedi Civil War. The Jedi Order sent a strike team to capture him, and the sole survivor of that team successfully managed to bring him back to the Order, who healed him and wiped his mind of all memories. They gave him a new identity free from the Dark influence, and he went on to save the Jedi Bastila Shan and defeat his former apprentice Darth Malak. He also was able to resist the mind control and torture of the Sith Emperor for several centuries.

After his release from stasis, he was eventually defeated by an Imperial strike team and attempted to be one with the Force. Instead, his spirit "splintered," driving him insane and leaving him fully submerged in the Dark Side once more. He formed an army of his own, with an ultimate goal of confronting the Emperor, before an alliance of Imperial and Republic forces managed to stop him on Yavin 4. At the moment of his death, his light-side spirit merged with his dark half, and he was whole and sane once more. Due to his many affiliations during his long lifetime, Revan's legend is respected among both the Jedi and the Sith. He is even worshipped as a god-like figure on several planets, and the Sith holocron he created as Darth Revan is responsible for the current Sith philosophy of the "order of two."

Luke Skywalker didn't start Jedi training until he was late in his teens—around three times the age that most Younglings begin their Padawan training. Despite very little formal Jedi education until he met Master Yoda on the swamp planet of Dagobah, Luke showed himself to be adept with his raw Force abilities and quickly mastered the art of lightsaber combat. He destroyed the first Death Star using his Force sensitivity to augment his piloting skills, and survived an early encounter against Darth Vader. He constructed his own lightsaber after losing his father's in that early duel, and went on to best Darth Vader in another lightsaber duel before resisting several strikes of Darth Sidious' Force Lightning. Luke went on to do some pretty amazing things in the Expanded Universe stories, including founding the new Jedi Order and destroying an entire fleet of Star Destroyers with the Force.