10 Original Pokémon Nobody Should Pick (And 10 That Are Totally Underrated)
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In all the generations of Pokémon, there are some Pokémon that are better than others. Here are the best and worst from Gen 1.
You Are Reading :10 Original Pokémon Nobody Should Pick (And 10 That Are Totally Underrated)
Category : Pokemon
There is something that all humans of this great land need to understand and never forget. When it comes to the Pokémon games on Game Boy and the various iterations on the Nintendo DS, it must be noted that I, the writer of this list, am a Pokémon Master. No, I have not caught them all, because a true master only seeks out the most powerful of Pokémon and ignores the garbage strategically. But I have killed them all, and that is what this list is all about… some Pokémon that suck egg.
The first 151 Pokémon are the most iconic of the series for a multitude of reasons. When Pokémon cards first hit the shelves, the desired holographic Charizard card may have been one of our first awakenings. The anime we all watched with Ash, Brock, and Misty making their way through Kanto is also iconic, as it was also incredibly popular.
After the first 151, and that awesome Mewtwo vs Mew movie, the generations of Pokémon that were released never had quite as much of an impact as the first generation, for obvious reasons. Now, the rest of the generation’s games and their Pokémon are awesome games with awesome new creatures, but they’ll just never stand out as much as Pikachu, Charizard, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Mewtwo. Even though the first 151 were super iconic, there are a few useless scumbags in the mix and a few underrated heroes that are overlooked for different reasons.
20 Worst: Ditto Fo-sho
Type: Normal(not really)
Uses: Excessive Breeding
Besides breeding with other Pokémon, Ditto is essentially useless. In the anime and the game, Ditto’s a rare prize for any trainer to come across and capture. Either way, that’s only for Ditto to transform into a various Pokémon and duplicate with the Pokémon that that trainer wants a baby of, since Ditto can copy their DNA.
Maybe all of that stuff Ditto has with other Pokémon makes it a valuable addition to the game, but it’s not a Pokémon you should ever use in your fighting crew. It’s the love Pokémon, it’s probably filthy, and thinks it’s a lot more “all that” than Ditto really is. All that aside, the photos of Dittos are pretty awesome since it’s most likely an alien symbiote like in the movie The Thing.
19 Underrated: You’ll Miss Me When I’m Porygon
Type: Normal
Uses: Porygon-Z
Have you ever used Porygon-Z? He’s a beast. He has a super high special attack and the Porygon evolutionary line has unique moves that make it able to take on nearly any enemy. There is Conversion and Conversion 2, as well as the passive abilities of Adaptability and Download.
Conversion changes Porygon’s type to that of one of its moves in its move set which would then allow for the STAB attack. On top of that, with the ability Adaptability, it increases the STAB from 1.5 times damage to 2.0 times damage. Conversion 2 changes Porygon’s type to a type that better defends against the enemy it’s facing. On top of those abilities, its high special attack leaves it with no enemy it can’t defeat.
18 Worst: Golduck The Bum
Type: Water
Uses: Experience For The Pokémon You Care About
Misty had her Psyduck for a long time; it was super-cute, clumsy, and incredibly useless. But for some reason, every once in awhile, Misty’s Psyduck would do something and enter into a totally mental telekineses berserk-mode and wreck all the enemies. This type of stuff doesn’t happen in the games; it’s kill or be killed. There’s no room for stupid duck Pokémon with babytown-frolic stats to tool about.
Golduck is just an upgraded version of the dummy, Psyduck. I understand that there is a need for various types of weak Pokémon in the game, but why Golduck is such a chump, I’ll never know. Golduck exists as a late-game wild encounter that is useful for one thing, experience for Pokémon that actually matter. Get lost, Golduck.
17 Underrated: Do Mew Love Me
Type: Psychic
Uses: Can Learn Every Move
Mew, like Dragonite, isn’t really an underrated Pokémon. But when next to Mewtwo, he seems pretty weak. Mew has good stats, in that each one of his stat base levels is 100. So he’s sort of a tank in his own right. The fact that he can learn every single move is what makes him the underrated extraordinaire.
Basically, you can just give Mew all the best attacks and have him as a reserve for intense battles that need a dependable warrior. He is pretty difficult to capture however, and that adds to his underrated factor because no one uses him. Everyone had a Mewtwo because that was the purpose of the game, as he was the first true Legendary. The fact that he was cloned to be like Mew is not lost on me, it just makes me forget that Mew even exists.
16 Worst: Jynx, You’re Awful
Type: Psychic/Ice
Uses: Subtle Pokémon Racism
Everyone who remembers Jynx remembers that she was caught doing blackface. They try to render her purple nowadays because of the subsequent outrage, but we all know her evil mindset. It’s a super creepy Pokémon, because it clearly has the shape of a woman who no one in their right mind should hook up with. She also looks like she could be an enemy in the Mario Bros. universe.
No matter what way you spin Jynx, she’s garbage. There is an opportunity to turn her into a Dream Eater/Dragon Killer with an above average special attack stat, but really, there are far too many Pokémon better than her to choose from. It’s a shame because Ice and Psychic could be a great combination, if only her defensive stats weren’t so terrible.
15 Underrated: Hypno Means No
Type: Psychic
Uses: Dream Eater Sweeper
Hypno holds a special place in my heart, because when I played Pokémon Red years ago I decided to beat it with a single Pokémon. Since I had to decide what was the best way to ensure victory, I needed a Pokémon who can heal itself and not take damage. Naturally, I built my Hypno with Dream Eater move set.
You get a Hypno, whose stats aren’t super great, and have him learn Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Substitute, and whatever fourth attack you want. Something elemental. This way with Hypno, if he gets attacked first, you can put the enemy to sleep, eat their dreams which heals Hypno, all from behind a substitute. It’s totally a troll way of playing. But I beat Pokémon Red by using only a Hypno with this move set.
14 Worst: Nidoking And Nidoqueen: Royalty In Ruins
Type: Poison/Ground
Uses: This Photo
The Nido family are a group of Pokémon that have a pretty cool idea attached to them. There is a female and male variation that are basically the same except for their final evolved form. What’s definitely the same about King and Queen is their disappointing stats. While they are Poison/Ground type, they learn some pretty cool moves, but of course, their below average stats make those attacks sort of useless.
Nidoking, more than many others, is disappointing for the fact that it looks super awesome. It looks like some prehistoric Koopa monsters that kills its enemies by the thousands. And it’s a King. But those two things only make its weaknesses that much more disappointing. I pray for regicide against the Nido-family.
13 Underrated: Eevee The Changeling
Type: Normal
Uses: Espeon, Glaceon, Umbreon, Jolteon
Eevee may not be a very underrated Pokémon, but I feel that it doesn’t get the respect it deserves. It has the ability to evolve into a multitude of different powerful Pokémon. This fact is not lost on many people, but I feel that the fact that Eevee is used as a mere stepping stone allows for him to be placed into the underrated category in the shadow of his older siblings.
They’re rare, first of all. So oftentimes a person can play through the game and never even acquire the Eevee. But then, once you get Eevee, you need to decide what you want him to turn into. It’s great that Eevee is normally given to the player late game, because then you can decide what evolution to turn him into to fit the strengths of your team. I normally don’t even use him at all.
12 Worst: Why You Gotta Be So Tentacruel?
Type: Water
Uses: Teaching Beach-Going Children How To Kill
Tentacruel is an overall useless Pokémon. Weak stats, useless moveset, and it’s super common. They only exist to constantly attack the player while surfing the water from one place to another. Tentacruel and its buddy Tentacool are probably the most annoying Pokémon out there. They’re jellyfish, and those things suck in real life too.
But seriously, they show up non-stop when you’re in the water. There are so many of them, which is true to form in the real world, I suppose. But it doesn’t make it any better. Surfing through the water, you get stuck fighting 200 jellyfish Pokémon and basically running out of moves with your Pokémon to slaughter them all. I always wanted to be in the water fighting giant sea monsters like Gyarados, sort of similar to what the oceans are like in the anime One Piece.
11 Underrated: Dragonite: Hidden Machine Slave Extraordinaire
Type: Dragon/Flying
Uses: As An HM Slave Or Last Effort Fighter
Dragonite might not really be underrated since he’s a very popular Pokémon with great stats. He’s in the realm of the pseudo-legendaries that each game has such as Metagross, Garchomp, Tyrantar, and Salamence. But what he’s never used as is an HM slave. He’s capable of learning Strength, Fly, Surf, and whatever other attacks you want to give him. He can learn all the HMs except Rock climb, which I totally disagree with. He can fly but not climb rocks? Okay.
It’s an unpopular opinion, probably, that he should be used as an HM slave. But not if you raise two of them at once. There’s gonna be times where you can’t have six high powered Pokémon with you as you traverse a cave since, you’ll need a Pokémon with certain HM abilities. My theory is that you raise 2 Dragonites, have one as your fighter and one as your sixth string back up fighter in a pinch. Because if you’re going to have an HM slave, which everyone should, he might as well be able to hold his own when the time comes.
10 Worst: Venomoth-ra
Type: Bug/Poison
Uses: Realizing You Left A Window Open
Venomoth, first of all, is a poser. It doesn’t even look like it should have evolved from Venonat. Look on Google, there are photos and images showing how Venomoth and Metapod have the exact same eyes, and how Venonat and Butterfree have the exact same eyes. So not only is Venomoth a worthless bug, he’s a liar too.
All that information is secondary to the fact that Venomoth sucks. If you actually forgot all about stupid dirt-face Venomoth, there’s nothing wrong with you. In fact, it’s normal. People forget things that are insignificant, like grass, or trees, or outer space. With important things in the world like war and Aged-Cheddar Mac and Cheese for 1$ a box, it’s okay to not fill your head with sub-par bug Pokémon.
9 Underrated: Pinsir Of The Sparkling Guillotine
Type: Bug
Uses: Sweeper
Pinsir is a Pokémon with great stats and great moves. The problem, and where its underrated status comes from, is that he’s hard to catch and super rare. In most of the games, Pinsir is in the Safari Area and catching those Pokémon is a royal pain in the butt. The reason he’s underrated and underused is that most people who go into the safari do so to capture a Scyther. And after hundreds of attempts at catching a Scyther, when one finally does so, the last thing they wanna do is stay in the safari zone to capture another bug.
Bug Pokémon are great because they are strong against Psychic, Grass, and Dark. But besides that, Pinsir has some awesome moves that could totally sweep an enemy team. The move set I’ve used with him in the past is Thrash, X-Scissor, Superpower, and Guillotine. All four of those moves could one hit KO a Pokémon five levels above your Pinsir due to his above average attack.
8 Worst: Pikachu The Unworthy
Type: Electric
Uses: Branding
This may be an unpopular opinion due to the overwhelming popularity that this specific Pokémon is credited with. But the hard truth is that Pikachu sucks, and so does its evolved form Raichu. They’re yet another group of Pokémon with bad stats and cool moves. The Chu’s have Volt Tackle which is one of the strongest Electric-type moves, but unfortunately with no real power it ends up just being a Pop Warner tackle.
It’s ridiculous how low Pikachu’s stats are compared to how popular the Pokémon is in mainstream culture. Pikachu’s popularity is so huge that most people don’t even realize it has a pretty cool looking and cool named evolution, Raichu. Even though it has abysmal stats and no proper in-game use, in Super Smash Bros. Pikachu might be my favorite character to play as. That ThunderBolt is awesome. Still, get lost, thunder-mouse.
7 Underrated: Magikarp The Misunderstood
Type: Water
Uses: Splash
Everyone knows that Magikarp turns into Gyarados. What they also know is that Magikarp is literally the worst Pokémon in the game and cannot learn any TMs. In most of the games, you even need to level Magikarp to level 15 until he learns an attack that can actually harm an opponent, since the only move he has is Splash. Does everyone know what splash is? I have a theory that they made Magikarp so terrible to sort of trick the player into thinking it’s useless. But then there’s my buddy Gyarados.
Gyarados is a great all-around Pokémon to have. He’s good for beginners and can even be found in the team of some masters who want a tough water-type. The only very effective weaknesses it has is Electric and Rock. And if your opponent doesn’t have either of those moves, then Gyarados can crush an entire dungeon’s worth of enemies. Magikarp may be a complete piece of trash, but his awfulness only bolsters how sweet and awesome Gyarados is.
6 Worst: A Bad Case Of The Lickitung
Type: Normal
Uses: French Kissing
This is another Pokémon that had some popularity within the show, but when it came to the game had terrible stats and no appeal. It looks like it could be a tank Pokémon with some sort of attacks to slow down or gross out your opponent. But no, it’s just another cool-designed Normal-type Pokémon with nothing to it.
It eventually evolves into another useless Pokémon, Licklicky. Licklicky isn’t much of an improvement stats-wise, but it’s most certainly dumber looking. Lickitung is one of those Pokémon that looks pretty cool and has a cool idea attached to it with its huge tongue, but never really rises to the occasion. Changing it into the ridiculous Licklicky with no real improvements was a weak choice. Beware the trainer who sweats a lot and carries around six Lickitungs!
5 Underrated: Lifestealer Muk
Type: Poison
Uses: Tank
Muk has a strong attack and he has decent move set that allows him to be pretty useful, regardless of the uselessness of most poison type Pokémon. Muk as an ability called stench that acts as a slight deterrent to wild Pokémon. It has no in-battle usage but is extremely valuable to the people who get sick of battling a new enemy every three steps into the tall grass.
In later generations, Muk can learn Gunk shot, which has a high attack power. His move set is wide open and could fit into a beginner’s team. Another great reason to use Muk is his signature item Black Sludge. Black Sludge heals all poison type Pokémon 1/16 of their health every turn. That, along with being a Wild Pokémon repellent, makes Muk a different type of useful.
4 Worst: Jigglypuff Dumpsterlife
Type: Fairy/Normal
Uses: Super Smash Bros. Punching Bag
What’s the appeal of this thing? In the show, it’s putting everyone to sleep with its singing and then drawing all over their faces with markers. Considering all the Pokémon I’ve slaughtered over the years, if some cotton candy-looking thing ever put me to sleep then drew on my face, I’d eat it alive. Seriously, though, this thing sings lullabies to people, putting them to sleep, then gets all salty when they’re passed out. What a loser.
Jigglypuff is another one of those popular Pokémon that made its way into the culture. Maybe because people think it’s cute, or maybe… no that’s probably the only reason anyone liked it. Cuteness. In Super Smash Bros. it was a garbage excuse for a fighter and in the Pokémon games, it had similar uselessness. No one should ever have a Jigglypuff or its idiotic equally useless evolved forms in their party.
3 Underrated: Venusaur Of The Sun Laser
Type: Grass/Poison
Uses: Solar Beam Cannon
Venusaur is the least popular of the Kanto starters’ final evolutions. Of course, you have Charizard whom everyone loves, and Blastoise who some have dubbed “Water Bowser” with his shell guns. Venusaur is just nowhere near as cool as the other two. It’s not his fault, he’s still way more awesome than many other Pokémon and is without a doubt the coolest Grass-type starter Pokémon.
But the real greatness of Venusaur is his ability to launch out solar beams. The real strategy is to have another Pokémon in your crew to use the move Sunny Day, which makes the sun shine brighter for 5 moves. Then you switch Venusaur in, and he can use solar beam 5 times in a row without having to gather sunlight. If you have Groudon, which is an incredibly powerful Pokémon in his own right, you can use this same technique.
2 Worst: Chump Change Farfetch’d
Type: Flying/Normal
Uses: HM Slave
Don’t let this photo of Farfetch’d as a samurai fool you. He’s garbage. Farfetch’d is one of those Pokémon in the anime that gets a special episode on how unique and intelligent it really is but, in the end, it’s just a bird with a stick who cuts things. This is a Pokémon with no evolution, weak stats, unimpressive moves, and a dumb face.
However, if you need a slave Pokémon to use your HMs, Farfetch’d is a good, early game HM slave. He can learn Fly and Cut, and in Generation 4 can learn Defog, which is an absolutely useless move that you need, so it might as well be assigned to a goof. On top of those three HMs, he can learn False Swipe which could aid in the capturing of Pokémon due to its ability to attack and leave 1HP left without killing the thing you’re trying to catch. So other than slavery, there’s no reason this Pokémon should be near you.
1 Underrated: Night Of A Thousand Omastar
Type: Rock/Water
Uses: Water Demon
Omastar is definitely the underrated Pokémon fo the fossil types. In the first game, you had the choice of Kabuto or Omanite, and most people picked Kabuto ’cause he looked super chill with his knife hands. There was also Aerodactyl who is super awesome too. But really it is Omastar who has the impressive stats and that’s what makes him underrated.
Rock/Water type isn’t the greatest combination of types for a few reasons. It’s weak against Grass, Fighting, Electric, and Ground, which are fairly common attacks. That sucks, yeah, but with its high special attack, high defensive stats, and ability to learn Ice-type moves, it’s a decent fighter and worth keeping in your crew if you need a water Pokémon.
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