Also I think because he was actually attainable. Gengar had to be…
…traded. And I didn’t know a single person who did that. I guess the kid across the street did it with his brother but I never saw it so it doesn’t count.
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No way Haunter was ever as popular as Gengar.
I think Gengar has been popular throughout the years but everything took a back seat to Charizard and then Umbreon. It was just ripe for manipulation eventually.
Also Deep Pocket Monster has 2 ‘Collect every Gengar’ videos that have hit 19.5m views combined that premiered in Oct/Dec 2024. Kinda insane for a Poketuber.
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For as long as I can remember collecting as an adult (since 2016) Gengar has been popular. Plenty of people were around who made Gengar their whole personality.
Kabutops included as a cool gen 1 'mon that I believe is not popular. (& yes I understand google trends is not a particularly accurate metric, but I think it gives at least a rough estimate)
It also ranked 9th in the official popularity survey by Pokemon in 2020: https://pokemon2020.pokemon.com/en-us/
If anything I think it’s been Umbreon who has become disproportionately popular over the last decade.
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Your talking about very recent times
Out the gate, Gengar was excluded from base set and pysdo excluded from the first games to boot. If you were able to get him, his stats did not change significantly enough. His special attack only goes up 11% which is a joke coming from an evolution upgrade and this is why haunter has an extensive history in competitive as he was already almost as strong as gengar but able to use special items and qualify in special tiers.
In the anime, gengar wasnt featured often and when he was, it was alongside haunter where he was just a goofball and didnt display any power. In fact it was Alakazam that was framed as this unbeatable psychic type. Ash didnt command ghost types with powerful moves, he was just able to make Sabrina laugh. This never helped Gengars Clout, he wasnt able to show himself as being powerful or separating himself from haunter and like I said earlier it was Alakazam that looked like a raid boss which added to his popularity which contrasted gengars.
Also, some kids were confused and actually thought haunter was the final evolution and not gengar, haunter gets the creepy hands and sharper lines. Gengar in contrast doesnt get bigger outside the fact he appears….fat. It just simply didnt add to his popularity out the gate. Kids looked up to powerful looking pokemon, thats why the fire breathing dragon looking pokemon is so popular.
When gengar finally made an appearance in the tcg, it wasnt until the third set.
Haunter was actually in base set, and also took away from gengar when he was given a holo card in fossil which was also when gengar was introduced
They kept minimizing Gengar from the very beginning… in the tcg, in the anime, in the games
Its not hard to see why this all took away from him. He was always popular but not nearly the same as he is today
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Pick one, can’t have both (and a decade does not merit the ‘very’ adverb here). Reminder, this whole convo started because the claim was made that Gengar became cool 2 years ago. I agree with what you say about the early, early days, mostly.
Gengar has always been decently popular. I always wanted him as a kid since he was a trade only pokemon. Speaking of, he has always been the most popular Masaki card, and has a great selection of artwork. I agree that the stonkage is recent, but I’m not that surprised.
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Why not both 
I thought it was actually Alakazam that was the most popular Masaki card during the original release? More copies of Alakazam were redeemed than Gengar (~39,000 to ~36,000).
Rounding error! Assuming having a Haunter or Kadabra to trade in was equal opportunity, you can also look at how playable Alakazam was compared to Gengar. Assuming that doesn’t matter, then your numbers are pretty reflective on popularity
This is so interesting. Apparently Aegislash is a very popular Pokémon too. That seems completely out of touch with reality.
Also, no Dragonite in the top 30.
Another day to be a japanese collector
Gengar has always been popular but the disparity between gengar and other comparable cards is definitely higher than it ever has been. But that’s true for a lot of categories in the hobby now
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The polling format is interesting, and can produce wildly out of touch results. according to this bulbapedia article, the votes were cast per region. Since the total votes per region don’t seem to differ too much among the top 30 (530K - 730K), that means that Pokémon from ‘unpopular’ regions may be overrepresented. It also is a metric of consensus among the most popular Pokémon per region. So if everyone agrees X Pokémon is the best of its generation, it will do extremely well on this poll.
Counterintuitively these generations with many beloved Pokémon will therefore be spread thin, resulting in relatively poor scores.
Sinnoh and Kalos votes are concentrated into the top 3, compared to e.g. Kanto, resulting in Greninja and Lucario (& Aegislash) being overachievers. Still, Gengar scores 2nd for Kanto Pokémon. But very questionable use of polling data, maybe intentional so Kanto doesn’t take 75% of the top 30…
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What a weird way to do the poll
But if that’s the way it lays then that’s the way it lays. I wondering why they didn’t just let that be. You think they were trynna get other pokemon to be more popular by trying to represent it in the poll?
Slight Purple Ink Fade*, Pop 1 of 1
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couldnt even get the mba bronze 
Modern chase cards never influenced the popularity of other cards of said species Sun and Moon and earlier.
Moonbreon was the first Pokémon to get a spotlight due to a modern card which actually lifted its popularity.
Right?