Discussion Alola starters secondary types in tcg

Shawn11189

Aspiring Trainer
Member
When do you think we will get the starters final forms as their sub type.
Ghost decideueye dark inceneroar and fairy primarina.
 
No guarantee we ever will. We got Greninja as a dark type but never got Delphox as a psychic type or Chesnaught as a fighting type. We never got Emboar as a fighting type either.

But we got Infernape, Torterra and Empoleon in alternate type so it doesn't mean it can't happen.
 
I'd say it's fairly likely we will eventually. The signature moves of Decidueye and Incineroar are of their secondary types, after all. And their secondary types play into their visual design quite a bit as well.
 
Likely perhaps, but again eventually is also a factor there. It took FIFTEEN YEARS for Tentacool/Tentacruel to get its alternate type, not to mention a shift in that alternate typing from grass to psychic. We're still waiting to see if/when Vileplume gets that treatment and I know there are more like that.
 
Eh, Vileplume we kinda did. We got a couple of Psychic-weak Vileplume prior to Diamond & Pearl, where Poison was still part of Grass. (The Delta Species one was also, ironically, Psychic-Type and weak to Psychic.)

Keep in mind some Pokemon represent one of their types a lot more than the other, though. I wouldn't expect something like a Colorless Mantine or a Fighting Carracosta to be terribly likely, for example. We've gotten a surprisingly large amount of the potential "alternates" at least once, though. It's mostly only Pokemon that gain types via evolution we lack at this point. (That said, the Gen 7 starters are in that category too.)
 
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Eh, Vileplume we kinda did. We got a couple of Psychic-weak Vileplume prior to Diamond & Pearl, where Poison was still part of Grass. (The Delta Species one was also, ironically, Psychic-Type and weak to Psychic.)

Keep in mind some Pokemon represent one of their types a lot more than the other, though. I wouldn't expect something like a Colorless Mantine or a Fighting Carracosta to be terribly likely, for example. We've gotten a surprisingly large amount of the potential "alternates" at least once, though. It's mostly only Pokemon that gain types via evolution we lack at this point. (That said, the Gen 7 starters are in that category too.)

I don't count things like Pokémon based off of weakness, not when Great Encounters gave us poison Oddish and Gloom, or when we get alternates of Tenatcool/Tentacruel even if took fifteen years. Delta Species also doesn't count really since all of those types were off.

Granted some will likely never get alternates. You mention Mantine and there is a good chance you're right (though I'd throw out Skarmory and Shaymin Sky Forme as counters to that argument) and Carracosta, which I can't agree with when looking at alternates for the kanto fossils (it still in the minority compared to other fossils though admittedly). At one point I had a list of all the stuff that needed alternates but that list seems to have vanished.
 
I wouldn't normally consider weakness as a determining factor, either. But it's the only way certain Pokemon (such as Grass/Poisons prior to Diamond & Pearl or, say, Gengar now) could have their alternative typings, so I do consider it valid for those cases.

I disagree with Skarmory and, especially, Skymin. I'd say Skarmory's Flying attributes aren't much less prominent than its Steel ones. (Incidentally, I wouldn't consider most colorless Flying-types surprising in general, as most are birds, which makes their Flying types pretty prominent. There's only a few bird Pokemon, like Zapdos, that I'd consider to represent their main type more.) Skymin in particular kinda needs to be Colorless to stand out from Landmin. (I'm actually surprised we've gotten as many Grass ones as we have.)

Carracosta I view similarly to Omastar. We might get a Fighting one eventually, but it would be a weird, once-off. Same goes for Bastiodon and Cradily.
 
I wouldn't normally consider weakness as a determining factor, either. But it's the only way certain Pokemon (such as Grass/Poisons prior to Diamond & Pearl or, say, Gengar now) could have their alternative typings, so I do consider it valid for those cases.

I disagree with Skarmory and, especially, Skymin. I'd say Skarmory's Flying attributes aren't much less prominent than its Steel ones. (Incidentally, I wouldn't consider most colorless Flying-types surprising in general, as most are birds, which makes their Flying types pretty prominent. There's only a few bird Pokemon, like Zapdos, that I'd consider to represent their main type more.) Skymin in particular kinda needs to be Colorless to stand out from Landmin. (I'm actually surprised we've gotten as many Grass ones as we have.)

Carracosta I view similarly to Omastar. We might get a Fighting one eventually, but it would be a weird, once-off. Same goes for Bastiodon and Cradily.

I don't disagree, at the moment weakness is the only way to have a poison Venusaur line. One day I'd like to see that changed but until that day happens we go with what we have. It's also the only way to have certain flying types like Butterfree, Beautifly, and Scyther and the odds of it changing are slim to none.

You can feel free to disagree and I agree it's a valid point but the same thing can be said for Yanma/Yanmega and yet we have yet to get flying types of them. No one is disputing most of the flying types as colorless makes the most sense since a lot of them until recently were normal types anyway. Again a valid point but I don't agree that Shaymin sky form needs to be colorless unless they want it to be something all can use like Shaymin EX was.

We also do have some oddities. We have an ice Weavile but never got an ice Sneasel. I personally have wanted a fighting Tyranitar that isn't labeled as Dark or Team Magma, and a fighting Aggron line that isn't Team Magma.

I agree that Carracosta, Cradily, Bastiodon and I believe Aurorus would be a one off fighting type, and realistically that is all we need. In that vein Archeops could be a one off colorless like Aerodactyl and Tyrantrum line could be one off dragon type. Note that the purple bordered Oddish/Gloom were basically one offs in Great Encounters that haven't been repeated since as well.
 
Tyrantrum I view as a special case. Given Dragon is such a small type, I'd see Tyrantrum being more likely to be Dragon, or at least close to 50/50. (The only other Fossils I'd view in that regard are Aerodactyl and maybe Armaldo. Though Aerodactyl I'd imagine will be mostly Colorless going forward, it's had so many Fighting cards that both are still "prominent" either way.) I will also note that they didn't really start really going for alternative typings until Gen 5-6. Prior to that, they were mostly restricted to variant cards like Pokemon SP, owner's Pokemon or obscure promos. (Barring a few random exceptions like Fighting Omastar.) Now we have Pokemon like Talonflame, Chandelure and Excadrill that are pretty much 50/50 much more often.

I will admit that some variants not having happened yet are weird to me. We've had a ton of Scrafty for instance, but none of them are Fighting-type. (I'd attribute the initial lack to there not being that many Darkness Pokemon introduced in Gen 5, but we've had 3 since that were all also Darkness.) No Poison Dragalge, either. (Though admittedly, we've only had 2 cards for it, and as mentioned with Tyrantrum, could be due to Dragon being tiny.)
 
Well we've only had like two Tyrantrum cards as well so far, the EX being dragon type but because of that not needing a Tyrunt. I hope that gets changed. So far Armaldo has not been seen in it's alternate typing yet despite it being in gen 3. The 'restriction' isn't as limited as you think though. Fighting Omastar also gave us our first Water Kabutops for example and the Neo sets also gave us our first fighting Poliwrath and steel Magnemite and Magneton (those might not count though since it was meant to showcase the new steel type) . E-series had several including fighting Magcargo (the only one ever), fire Houndoom, psychic Exeggcutor, water Lanturn, (the only one ever), fighting Nidoking, water Slowbro, psychic Starmie

I completely agree about the Scrafty line, none of them being fighting. How about Skuntank never being psychic outside of SP? Aggron never being fighting type outside of Team Magma? That's been around since gen 3 as well. For now I suppose Dragalge gets a pass but not for much longer. Skrelp could also be a water type too. Honestly it's making me want to reconstruct my unmade alternate types list again lol.
 
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