I was thinking about this for a while and am curious to hear your opinions about it.
The amount of popular Pokémon has stagnated for a while now. Most evergreen Pokémon nowadays are from Gen 1-3.
I think this is due to the fact that the more Pokémon there are and the more frequent new Pokémon get released, it’s hard for a new Pokémon to stick out and cement its position. Most Pokémon are maybe popular for 1 or 2 gens but fall off quickly after that period of time.
So what will happen in the future? Will there be new popular Pokémon on the same level as Charizard, Umbreon, Rayquaza and in Japan maybe Greninja? What needs to happen for this to become reality?
For the TCG, this will probably result in recycling the same 5-10 popular mons over and over again, as we have seen for the past gens.
Will new, future Pokémon make the cut, or are we “doomed” to seeing the same mons getting recycled over and over again? And could this be one of the reasons people will lose interest in the franchise or the TCG as collectors?
I think Rayquaza is easily mainstream top 5 most popular species ATM. It could even be higher than top 5. I would not be surprised at all if it was more than Umbreon and lugia
I think top 5 is (not listed in a particular order) charizard, Lucario, greninja, umbreon, meowscarada currently. Rayquaza is probably easily in top 10 though
More popular than Zard? Probably never. We dont need a new Charizard though. Charizard will always be top dog or runner up (more likely this), and thats fine. I dont think anyone expects a breakout hit to top the iconic gen wun mon, but every gen has had multiple standouts.
Its kinda like how the illustrator is still top card all these years later or how wotc is supreme. That doesnt mean we have had nothing cool since then.
Every gen will have popular Pokemon whether it be due to the anime, TCG, mainline games etc but I think nothing will replace Pikachu ever. The mascot is the most recognizable Pokemon and will stay so till and after Pokemon. It’s ingrained in popular culture at this point.
Not a big fan of Digimon outside of playing the card game here and there with some friends. However, WarGreymon and BlackWarGreymon look cool as hell lol.
These would be my guesses for the stand-out and enduring Pokemon of each generation (after 1 and 2). Eeveelutions are not added because they are obviously popular and will stay that way. I tried to stray away from starters because they will always be memorable.
Gen 3:
Rayquaza
Deoxys
Gen 4:
Bidoof
Luxray
Lopunny
Garchomp
Lucario
Giratina
Acreus
Gen 5:
Zoroark
Reshiram
Zekrom
Gen 6:
Greninja
Dedenne
Gen 7:
Mimikyu
Zeraora
Gen 8:
Toxtricity
Snom
Gen 9:
Tinkaton
Annihilape
So to answer the OP’s question, yes I think there will be new popular Pokemon that will endure into future generations.
Meowscarada is extremely popular, but yeah Top 5 is a pretty hard list since theres so many good Pokemon out of 1000 lmao. I think Greninja and Lucario beats Charizard in popularity, but could be wrong as this data was from like 2022.
Dont Forget Gen 6 Diance! Gen 8 idk about Like generally, but Urshifu is a pokemon competitive will be feeling for a LONG time. Same with gen 5 land t, Note as i am a competitive player my opinion is kinda biased torwards viable pokemon :// Cheers!
That’s a good list. My point was not that there are no more popular Pokémon, but no more Pokémon that are as popular as the ones from Gen 1-3. To me, the difference in popularity levels of an Umbreon or a Rayquaza to a Reshiram or an Annihilape are worlds apart.
