Newfound respect for certain pokemon

Malamar. I thought it was kind of goofy, but then I saw a Malamar in an AbdallahSmash026 video. While the trainer was incompetent, so the Malamar ended up going down after only one turn on the field, the possibility for abuse of Superpower with the Contrary ability (ie. a 120 power move that gets stronger each time you use it -- with a defense boost to boot) became ingrained in my mind. Since then, I have swept many a team with a Malamar, and it is definitely in my top ten favorites.

 

Ah, there's several I eventually found a respect for. A few examples would be:

Swoobat - Thought it was just a disgrace to the Zubat line, until I used it in NU for the first time in Gen V with its Simple ability, combined with Calm Mind and Stored Power. It was an excellent sweeper.

Sableye - Never thought much of it until its HA was released in Gen V. This made it one of the biggest trolls in competitive battling. If it wasn't for its Mega, it probably wouldn't hold up that well today, because it now has a weakness.

Whimsicott - Thought it was a pretty lame design and useless Pokémon altogether when it was first released. Then, I used it in Double Battle, alongside Terrakion, and it's one of the best double battle supporters out there today! It's been even greater since acquiring the Fairy type.

 

Sharpedo. i thought it was some stupid shark with low stats until I slapped one onto a team in showdown and holy god was I impressed. I would let it speed boost, then Mega next turn and it outsped anything that wasn't scarfed, and delivered some damn devastating strong-jaw boosted attacks. Plus, it's design is kinda awesome. Now Sharpedo has a special place in my heart.

 

I used to really not care about grumpig, simply dismissing it as "another Pokémon that tried to be Alakazam, but failed". However, when I found it in one of my randomizers, it was a beast, coming with me to the end. It was quite powerful, and I never underestimated it again.

 

Lately, those Pokémon for me would have to be Meganium, Tentacruel, Exeggutor, Azumarill, Bellossom, Jumpluff, Camerupt, Cherrim, Whimiscott, Lilligant, Swanna, and Seismitoad. Torkoal has yet to earn my respect, as the stats are soooooo booty.

 

I recently started to use a Mismagius on one of my showdown teams and holy god is it good. Sure it's physical defense is poor, so knock off... Otherwise, it's got decent Hp, and it's SpA and SpD are through the roof. It was destroying stuff, and with Mystical Fire is can stop some sweepers from completely destroying you. It's really good, unless you get hit by knock off.

 

Jellicent. I actually only used it because I saw the male design and thought it looked funny. Turns out it's a great bulky 'mon with a pretty sweet move pool and access to giga drain for damage and recovering. Will-o-wisp is great in combination with Hex and just to make it physically even bulkier. All in all, the thing is probably one of my favorite bulky Pokémon, and I only ever found it because it had a moustache haha.

 

Lilligant!
I didn't think much of it before, but it's a beast. I love mine <3

 

I always thought Zoroark was cool, but I never thought about actually using one until my SnK Showdown team. Now it's one of my favorite Pokémon haha. Illusion is an awesome ability, and while it's extremely frail it's decently fast and has good Sp. Atk.

 

Yanma! Mine kicked some serious butt in the Little Cup. It's already pretty fast, but once it has gotten off one or two speed boosts via it's ability it's pretty easy for it to outspeed most other 'mons.

 

Not exactly a metagame/competitive example, but Klinklang is one. I hadn't cared for it much at first, but it started to grow on me until it wound up becoming one of my favorite Pokémon after putting it on my team in B/W. It was actually a friend who'd once had a Klingklang as an RP character that I owe to that, haha. In a more battle-related example, Honchkrow is a twisted case; I've always loved its design, but wasn't inspired to start using one until seeing its good offensive stats.

 

I never really liked Tentacruel, but as it turns out both competitively and ingame it's quite the beast, and tbh quite a few Pokémon you'd dismiss are actually halfway decent while just casually playing through the story, I mean early game bug types like Beautifly aren't great competitively but if you just want to play the story again they're not half bad.

 

Definitely Landorus,
I never really like the half
cloud man design
but when I actually used it in a battle,
I LEARNED HOW FUN IT WAS TO USE


AND IT HAS A CAT FORME????

SIGN ME UP

 

Whimsicott, ambipom, honchkrow, drifblim, pachirisu, bannet, ludicolo, linoone, tenticruel, golduck

 

Slowpoke. I never really thought it was worth training. Its cute sure but I never excpected it to be a solid Pokémon. But in my current playthough of SS my Slowpoke is fixture on my team. In fact I have a few others in SS. Crobat is great too totally worth training up a zubat. Which is saying something because I dispised Zubat before this. I did like bellsprout but only used it agaist the first gym leader until this playthough its got some decent moves and can do some damage once you learn to use growth properly.

I was a bit of a jerk about Vanilite because it was an ice cream Pokémon but once I actually caught one I realized I was being snob.

 

Volcarona. I never really payed attention to that till recently, like most gen 5 Pokémon but damn that thing is killer, and I love the design now~.

 

Drapion especially. I used to really dislike it, probably because I always had trouble with defeating one in-game. Now I've actually used one in the main games and in the PMD games, I actually think it's pretty good and it looks really awesome (especially the shiny <3 ).

Cleffa as well, I actually used to hate this thing, but now, for some reason I think it's really damn adorable.