Worst Gen V pokemon-#9

It's Mandibuzz

OK, with 510 base stats, including pretty good 110/105/95 defenses; decent typing both defensively and offensively and a fairly broad movepool which allows it to be quite versatile, Mandibuzz is far from the weakest pokemon for battling in Gen V.  In fact, the main reason it's on here is because Vullaby is one of the worst designs for a pokemon ever, and it really had to be amazing to live up to its dark/flying predecessors Murkrow and Honchkrow and, as it turns out, its successor Yvetal. But it's wearing a diaper! Mandibuzz actually is kinda cool, and I have cards in which it looks great, but that just does NOT justify a diapered prevolution. Nothing does. Also, its Japanese name is Vulgina. Just saying.

Edited to add: Just looked properly at its design for the first time and actually it's weird. I understand it couldn't completely lose the diaper (although humans do) but the spiked crotch, combined with the fact all Mandibuzz are female, makes it seem like extreme birth control

Worst Gen V Pokemon- #10

Surprisingly, it's.....Druddigon. Here's why. It always felt like this was kind of a showdown between Druddigon and Haxorus, as the only 2 fully-evolved dragon type pokemon (Arceus excluded,) and both coming from Unova, and if you read my June post on best Unova pokemon you'll see Haxorus at a conservative 6th. That makes Druddigon the loser, and in fact Haxorus wins in my book in virtually every way: overall stats, stat distribution, movepool, overall useability, concept and most of all design. Even its name is cooler. Druddigon kinda sounds like a stroke victim saying "Dragon." Druddigon is so heavily outclassed by Haxorus that I almost wonder why they put it in there. There are two things that could have really helped. First, it looks so much like a storybook dragon that it could have had normal/dragon typing, which would be better typing in my opinion. Second, again with it being the most like a fairytale dragon (read: unoriginal and uninspired) it could have had a storyline with the knight pokemon Escavalier, which could have been interesting. But really, Haxorus is here because I wanted to draw up the list before posting and I haven't done it yet, so Druddigon being 10th is kind of a copout but it also kinda works. 9th (as properly determined) tomorrow!

Countdown

OK, so it's 53 days until the new games come out, so I'm going to do a sort of retrospective on the last 5 generations. I've done my top 10 favourite Gen V pokemonm, so for the first ten days I'm just gonna do my 10 worst Gen V pokemon. After that I'll do best/worst, one of each per day, for each generation. We start Friday.

I don't like any of these damn pokemon

OK, disclaimer, this is the latest I've been with info, but things have gone nuts both in my life and the pokemon world over the last 3 weeks or so, and I've had a lot to blog and not much time to do it in. That's actually not why it's taken me so long to get this done, that's just because I have nothing interesting to say on the subject. But eventually I decided as a blogger if I have nothing interesting to say, that's what I have to say.

Along with the megaevolutions and so on, September's Corocoro also unveiled three new pokemon, with their Japanese names, followed by their English. They're kind of all indicative of the problems I've been having with Gen VI's pokemon thus far. Let's go.

 

Skiddo- The Mount Pokemon (Giggity!)

Height-0.9m

Weight-31.0kg

Type-Grass

Ability- Sap Sipper

It's Gogoat's pre-volution. It is also rideable. It can learn Leaf Blade. I'm done.

Bunnelby- The Digging Pokemon

Height-0.4m

Weight-5.0kg

Type-Normal

Ability- Cheek pouch/ pickup

Buneary called. It sounded angry. Cheek pouch is a new ability, clearly somehow related to the real-life ability of certain mammals (hamsters come to mind) that can store food in pouches in their cheeks. That might be an HP-replenishing ability, but it's hard to tell.

 

Dedenne- The Antenna Pokemon

Height-0.2m

Weight-2.2kg

Type-Electric/fairy

Ability-Cheek pouch/pickup

This isn't a horrible pokemon by any means, in fact it's pretty adorable and well-conceived, but it's nothing new. Does an electric rodent sound familiar? Yeah, if it wasn't for the fact all 3 members' names end in -chu I'd swear it was a new Pikachu evolution. It still might be. And that's not a mistake, it really does have the same abilities as Bunnelby. I like it, and electric/fairy looks like pretty good offensive typing, but it feels very uninspired and a bit derivative.

Sorry again for the horrible formatting. I'm having issues with the program at the minute and adding pictures is hard.

You sly fox, you

And Fennekin continues to confuse and intrigue me. I had what I thought was a lock on it being a fire/fairy, until....new information. The pokemon game show revealed that the fairy type will be not very effective on the fire type. That's a spanner not so much in the works as in the balls. On the one hand, that suggests something I initially thought may well be true: that the fire type counters the fairy type, but as for my thoughts that Fennekin's Glow Punch would be fairy type, that's not looking likely. Because, assuming that the battle dynamics stay the same and a hit super-effective on one of a pokemon's types and not-very-effective on the other will be neutral (e.g.  fire attacks on ice/dragon type Kyurem,) a fairy-type hit should at best be neutral on fire/normal Litleo. That's not a good sign at all for Fennekin not being fighting type. Assuming pre-existing type matchups will remain the same, that leaves Glow Punch as being fighting, water, ground or rock type, and it....doesn't look like any but being a punch fighting leads the charge. In summary, either Glow Punch is not fairy type, or Fairy type will be 4x effective against the normal type. And that's a terrible idea.

Corocorocorocorocoro chameleon

It has been confirmed that next month's Corocoro won't reveal as big a twist as this month's but will continue giving us bits and pieces from the game. It is worth noting that this will be the penultimate Corocoro before the new games are released, with the last being around a week before the worldwide release. It is now less than 2 months until the new games, and given that we only have about 30 of what will probably be 100-150 pokemon we can expect the number of new pokemon to be significant. New megaevolutions will be revealed, and so, perhaps most interestingly, will the fairy type's battle properties. Given that I, along with many other enthusiasts, am now pretty sure Fennekin will evolve to be fairy type, I wonder if that means we'll get to see the other starters' evolutions. If Fennekin's move Glow Punch, which is our biggest clue, is in fact fairy type then the fairy type does supereffective damage to either fire, normal or both types. It seems most likely to be normal. In other news, so far no new ice types have been revealed, and there's likely to be a handful, so expect at least one. The number of new legendaries has risen steadily game by game, from 5 in Gen I to 6 then 10 then 14 and finally 13 in Gen V. This number fell for the first time from Gen IV to Gen V but I don't for a moment believe that the only legendaries of Gen VI will be Xerneas and Yvetal, so there are more to come or to be announced as legendaries from the existing pokemon. But I bet there's at least one to come, because if the two we have don't make up two parts of a trio it'll be the first time since Gen II. There's a Rayquaza/Giratina/Kyurem to come. I'll be here to judge it. Oh, wait, I've still got the 3 new pokemon from Corocoro to do. They all suck. Whatever. I'll do it tomorrow.

Battle of the gods-Heat A

OK, here goes.
Heat 1-Kyurem-W vs Dialga

And straight off the bat we have 2 of the favourites, 2 hugely strong dragons. In secondary typing, they represent the dragon type's greatest offensive and defensive enemies in ice and steel. However, Kyurem's ice and dragon type attacks are balanced by the steel type's resistance to both. It can use a few very very powerful fire type attacks, but these only do neutral damage due to the dragon type. This is what makes Dialga so deadly, resistances everywhere. Dialga's STABs, however, both hit White Kyurem for super-effective damage. Both are specially-offensive nightmares, with huge special attack, but both have pretty limited special defense, meaning it really comes down to who hits the fastest, because neither can take the other's hit (Dialga's Roar of time, Kyurem's Draco Meteor.) And the faster pokemon is....Kyurem-W.
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD! THE DRAGON TYPE REPRESENTATIVE IS OUT ROUND 1 AND AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DRAW RAYQUAZA IS STARTING TO GET SCARED.

Heat 2-Terrakion vs Regigigas

I'm not even gonna. Regigigas is really only in here because it's the only normal-type legendary. Meanwhile, representing the rock type, Terrakion is a pretty good pokemon all things considered. Even without being overall better than Regigigas, Terrkion counters it beautifully. Its rock type  combined with Regigigas' teeny tiny movepool means it's pretty likely to resist every attack of Regigigas, especially because Regigigas is running confusion, paralysis and substitute, giving Terrakion a 37.5% chance of a hit. But when it does hit, which it's more than likely to do in the 5 turns Regigigas is essentially useless, it's with a scarily powerful STAB  and super-effective Sacred Sword. Bye-bye Regigigas. And the winner is..Terrakion

Heat 3- Volcarona vs Groudon

Volcarona really didn't want to face a ground type in round 1. Then again, it also didn't want to face a water, flying or rock type, or another fire type that resists its STABs. But this is Groudon's to lose, because Volcarona can be one of the deadliest pokemon in the game....in sun. Groudon, you done screwed yourself. In sun, Volcarona outspeeds Groudon to deliver an STAB sun-boosted Flare Blitz (my choice for a reliable fire-type hit, which Volcarona needs, while having huge power. The recoil is irrelevant. If that's not an OHKO you're in trouble/defensively in no danger most of the time.) coming from 120 base power, with Volcarona's 135 base attack, and with the sun up, and the fact that Groudon doesn't actually resist the fire type, and Volcarona takes it in another OHKO. Good boy, Volcarona. :)

Heat 4- Palkia vs Keldeo

This is a water head-to-head with the honour of representing water in the quarter finals at stake. It's also a battle between one of, in my opinion, the ugliest pokemon and one of the best-looking. And yet ugly old Palkia is definitely the favourite. They will both be using their non-water type STAB attacks, Palkia's Spacial Rend and Keldeo's Secret Sword. Keldeo hits first, and hits hard with a 129 special attack 85 base power STAB Secret Sword. This hits Palkia's mediocre defense stat and deals it a lot of damage, but Palkia survives and responds with 150 special attack, 100 base power STAB, into Keldeo's subpar special defence. This is a one-hit KO, and gives Palkia the win in the match. Nice job, Penis