Pokemon on your teams that surprised you

[Trillion]

what are some pokemon that you used in your playthroughs that were either better or worse than you thought they would be?

i've always been a fan of vileplume so i caught an oddish on route 1 in let's go. that oddish ended up being the ace of my team. it was my walking pokemon throughout the whole game and it did so great as a gloom that i never evolved it into vileplume. it's one of my favorite pokemon that i own

on the other hand, my noivern from ultra moon when it was a noibat was terrible. i like to let my pokemon fight their own battles rather than using the exp share so it was a struggle to train it. i didn't expect noibat to be the strongest pokemon ever but i didn't expect it to be that bad either lol. it's great as a noivern though

 

[Gamzee Makara]

My gift Castform(The Lax one) in Alpha Sapphire KO's 3/4 Members of the Elite 4 single-handedly via changing weather and Weather Ball.

I have missed Castform in Sword and Shield for this reason.

That mon is only treated as trash thanks to the tierjerkers at Smogon.

 

[Xaby]

The Togetic which evolved from the Togepi which hatched from the egg Cynthia gave me in Pokémon Platinum was a surprisingly good wall and medic. And this was during a time before Eviolite.

Togekiss
-Yawn
-Wish
-Fly
-Safeguard

I use Yawn on the first turn, then Wish on the second. The enemy goes to sleep on the end of the second turn, and if Togetic needs the healing he can stay in and use Safeguard on the third turn and receive the healing by the end of it.

He can then use Wish again and pass to the next Pokémon who, hopefully, still comes in on the still sleeping opponent.

He can also attack with Fly which acts as a pseudo-Protect and works well with Yawn and Wish.

He's like the Gen 1 Soft-Boiled Chansey who is crucial for the healing of the party. He allowed my underleveled party get through most of the game (Gen 4 spawn rates are really, really taxing).

 

[Storm the Lycanroc]

In my playthrough of Pokemon Sword earlier this year I had an Obstagoon who single handedly beat Raihan in the semi-finals match. Raihan was on his last Pokemon, Gigantimax Duraludon and I sent out Obstagoon to wait a few turns so the gigantimax would wear off. Duraludon used Max Knuckle against Obstagoon but due to the friendship mechanic he was able to survive the hit with a little bit of health. Obstagoon then used Counter and one hit KO'd the towering skyscraper. In that moment I felt a mix of joy and confusion over what just happened.

 

[wobbanut]

Azumarill is one pokemon that's surprised me to include. I never really thought of marill and azumarill as anything but cute pokemon to fill the pokedex, but they proved pretty handy in gen 6 once they gained the fairy typing, since they can also learn ice moves to use against dragons.

 

[nel3]

back in HG battle tower (main one) i had issues with the silver opponent. i had wanted to get a ground type dragon and chose Flygon. i did consider chomp but the lucky switch ins into ground moves with levitate made all that worth the choice. as for X online battles i went with a VGC '13 or '14 EV set and added a mega to Gardevoir and it was a powerhouse online with a fair amount of survivals against legendary choices by the opponent that a more conventional set would not have done well against.

 

[TwilightBlade]

Zoroark in my Black game was kind of bad. Not totally awful but more like disappointing because I thought it would be more useful, but I didn't like its movepool options and its Illusion ability was kind of annoying more than anything. :[

 

[Drake Pokétrainer]

Claydol and Mightyena in XD: Gale of Darkness. The pokemon pool is already kinda limited in the Orre games, with there being either no or very limited wild pokémon. So I did try out some mons I never used in the past and this combo did really well.