Yep. If I remember correctly, Thick Club Marowak was really what pushed Donphan out of the spotlight, correct? And with Donphan being a pure Ground type, it didn’t have the Normal resistance of dual types like Rhydon, Golem and Steelix. Still really bulky though, and has that beefy 120 Attack stat.
Ursaring just doesn’t really cut in OU seeing as how the OU scene is dominated by Snorlax, and you really don’t want two Normal types on your team because of the advent of Fighting types in Gen 2 (remember in Gen 1 when Fighting types were all but useless so you could basically have Tauros, Snorlax and Chansey all on the same team with virtually no issues?). But Ursaring is definitely a monster in the lower tiers because of that 130 Attack stat. The thing hits like a truck.
Marowak was absolutely a big factor in the beginning but it would’ve happened regardless as the metagame matured. The main problem with Donphan is that it offers absolutely no offensive momentum beyond Earthquake. So all you have to do is switch in a ground immunity that can tank a non-stab HP rock, Body Slam or whatever and you’re good to go.
Or something like Miltank which brings us to the double Normal combo. That is actually quite a common thing in GSC! Snorlax+Miltank and Snorlax+Blissey are both really good combos, not the norm I would say but used fairly regularly. Basically, it is impossible to build a good GSC team without a glaring weakness to Machamp and it’s Cross Chop, the only viable Fighting move from the only viable Fighting type in the tier beyond a coin toss Dynamic Punch from Tyranitar or even Gengar. But Machamp loses to Snorlax more often than not because you take nearly 50% from Double-Edge on the switch in and you have to hit Cross Chop twice unless you hit the 20% crit. And Snorlax can usually switch out anyway, Cross Chop is 8 PP, and if Snorlax has already set up a curse your only hope is a crit.
I LOVE Miltank in GSC. I know people tend to favor Blissey, but I always go with Miltank for my cleric because of its STAB Body Slam and good speed. So yeah I guess I do go with two Normal types because I use both Snorlax and Miltank. Haha.
I always liked the Nido pokemon. Kinda like Tyranitar without the stats. I like the aquapolis non crystal best but base is still better than bottom 25% tier
I absolutely love Nidoking but decided not to collect it solely because I can’t stand the look of the base set color scheme. Something about a yellow border, green card, purple pokemon, and red/yellow holo pattern makes me want to puke. Giovanni’s Nidoking on the other hand…
Raichu is one of my favorites but always seems to get overshadowed by pikachu. I think most of my attachment is due to nostalgia from wanting the base set card so badly as a kid.
Definitely surprised about Steelix not being more popular, too, especially given that it was kind of the poster child for the Steel type when the type first came out in Gen 2.
For me, it’s always been Zapdos. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I really feel like he’s flown under the radar at times. Seems like Articuno and Ho-Oh or some other legendary bird always gets mentioned more (all for good reasons, of course):
I also got my 1st Ed Base Zapdos card so cheap when I bought it, meanwhile some Raichu will still manage to sell for 2x-3x more it seems. Nothing against Raichu of course… but Zapdos is a better card from the TCG side, and I even liked him more in the actual games.
It’s funny because I remember when Gen 1 first came out, Zapdos was, by far, the most popular legendary bird. That probably had something to do with the fact that it was also quite easily the best of the three in battle. Then as the years went by, Zapdos kind of fell off in terms of popularity.
Zapdos’ path in that case is similar to Jolteon. Jolteon was a runaway favorite for the most popular Eeveelution in Gen 1 and was even neck and neck with Umbreon when Gen 2 was released. But now, a legitimate argument can be made that Jolteon is no longer even the most popular Gen 1 Eeveelution (it’s probably Vaporeon at this point).
Was more saying the evolution mechanic was bad not the pokemon, the pokemon are good enough, I just never got to use them so dont love them. Id imagine thats why theyre not more popular than they already are
Nidorino, I like the whole evo line but Nidorino is the stand out for me. I still remember seeing the first minute of the tv show, battling with Gengar (and seeing it in the intro of the red/blue gameboy games later on!)
Golduck, For me, The definition of less is more. The nice and easy going design and the cool character Golduck has does it for me. While Psyduck might be a top 50 in popularity, Golduck seems nowhere close.
Mankey / Primeape, This is simple, did you watch the anime?? The episode where Ash meets/catches Primeape and the episode where he leaves it behind after the tournament almost gets me to tears!
Haunter, awesome design, awesome anime appearance and I think alot of people had to play with Haunter, since not everyone could use Gengar because you had to trade for it in the gameboy games.
Rhydon, This is an obvious one, 1st pokemon.
Slowking, for me the best in his evo line, but it seems to be the least popular one, although it had a big roll in the 2nd movie and has alot of awesome cards.
Smeargle, this one is really underrated imo, although it was useless in the games, Smeargle is an artist! We all like art, don’t we? Also, it doesn’t have that many cards, but almost all are bangers!!
Delcatty, I love cats. It really has an elegant design imo.
