Anime
- Ash Ketchum has been given this status for over 20 years by fans due to a combination of several factors, such as being the hot-blooded Idiot Hero who often suffers Surprisingly Realistic Outcomes in the first few seasons, having a rival with an Awesome Ego who often steals his thunder (especially after a major victory), not coming home as a winner of a Pokémon League, and having a game counterpart (Red) that fans project their wish fulfillments on that they couldn't with Ash. It's common to see memes like "Gary was here, Ash is a loser"note or "Red is better than Ash." However, this status gradually eroded around the late 2010s and 2020s when Ash started pulling off feats and accomplishments that not even his detractors can downplay.
- When he was first introduced, Ash was an immature, inexperienced child who was constantly put down by his peers and rivals, most notably Gary Oak (who gained a Memetic Badass reputation despite the fact he was always one rank behind Ash in every competition they had partaken). He only started getting better at being a trainer after the Indigo League,note but the first few seasons of the anime left a lasting impression on the fandom, and Black & White series' attempt to Soft Reboot on Ash's character (and Pikachu's power level) only reinforced such perception. The other main factor is the Pokémon League Conferences losses. For over 20 years, Ash has slowly being climbing the ranks in the Pokémon League Conferences, but never actually winning the championship until the Alola League. Because of this, and the fan misconception that winning a League makes you a Pokémon Master, Ash has been ridiculed as a failed trainer simply for not winning a League, with his other major achievements, like the Orange League and Battle Frontier, being subjected as side-competitions that somehow don't count.
- During April Fools' Day 2018, the Official Pokémon website got in on the fun
by pointing out that Jessie's Coordinator career was equally successful to Ash's Trainer career-despite Ash trying his hardest for 20 seasons worth of television. After his victory in the Alola League was assured in Japan, the English website decided to hype it up by highlighting all the times he lost, complete with catchy names and using "And then Ash loses." as a Running Gag.- Jessie's character page: Several Pokémon Coordinators with a conspicuous resemblance to Jessie—Jessilina, Jessibella, and Jessica, just to name a few—have proven quite capable in Pokémon Contests. This medium is a perfect fit for Jessie, allowing her to show off her creativity, sense of style, and battling ability. She's been so successful in this realm that it's clear she could have a second career—she made it all the way to the semifinal round of the Sinnoh Grand Festival ("Coming Full-Festival Circle!"). A certain Twerp who wants to be a Pokémon Master has only achieved that placement in a major region's Pokémon League competition twice, and he's been trying for 20 seasons!
- When he finally wins a League directly from the games, the Alola League, some fans still give him crap for it; the win is seen as inferior due to the Alola League just having been established and its rules not to other Leagues' standards (and thus not a "real" League, much like the Orange Islands). However, other fans decides to make Ash into a Memetic Badass, if only to highlight the irony that the childish looking Ash from Sun & Moon ultimately won the championship rather than the more serious and badass-looking Ash from both DP and XY.
- By the end of Pokémon Journeys: The Series, Ash's status as a loser completely went away as the series gave him access to fan-favorite Pokémon, battle gimmicks, and powerful opponents once thought to be off-limits to him due to the series' previous formulaic status quo. Jokes and memes about Ash being dumb were reduced to mocking him for not knowing anything outside of Pokémon battles, and the memes of him being a loser for not winning a League tournament went extinct after Ash wins the World Championship by defeating Leon, the world's strongest and undefeated champion. And just when it seemed like Ash would inevitably reset back as a novice in the new region and start the whole cycle again, it was then announced that Ash and Pikachu will be retired and replaced by Liko and Roy in Pokémon Horizons: The Series, ensuring that Ash ended his journey on a high note.
- Some of Ash's Pokémon get this status either due to their win-loss ratio or infamous incidents that they can never live down.
- Ash's Torkoal has a rough reputation due to its poor track record during Ash's Hoenn journey. The few times it's been called upon after Hoenn has also resulted in losses, but to be fair, those fights were against Brandon's Registeel and Tobias' Darkrai.
- Ash's Torterra is infamous among the fandom for having never won a single battle after fully evolving outside of Team Rocket despite its losses being meant to show how powerful its opponents were. There's a reason fans gave it the flattering nickname of "Jobterra".
- Ash's Greninja gets subject to many memes due to it losing against Alain's Mega Charizard X in the finals of the Kalos League, despite having an otherwise excellent track record and it opponent having held against and in one case beaten Olympus Mons on top of a similar if better track record. Ironically its impressive win against Sawyer's Mega Sceptile immediately prior despite its type advantage contributed to this by making Greninja's loss despite it having the type advantage feel more contrived. Quite ironic considering Greninja is otherwise a Memetic Badass.
- Team Rocket are the in-universe Goldfish Poop Gang, but have their Not-So-Harmless Villain moments (including a few outright victories) and generally a character beating them down is supposed to demonstrate their potential as a trainer. Unfortunately most fans fail to even treat it as an accomplishment anymore, to the point the trope sometimes extends to characters who over rely on Team Rocket battles for any source of badassery.
- Team Rocket themselves are such an iconic example of loser villains that "Team Rocket" has become fan-speak for the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains in general, and many fans upset about a character's Villain Decay will complain they're turning into Team Rocket. Here on TV Tropes, this is why our trope page about otherwise ineffectual villains emerging victorious is titled Team Rocket Wins.
- Celebi from Pokémon 4Ever, despite receiving a case of Adaptational Abomination, is constantly tossed around during the movie, can't seem to win anything, and his status as a Guardian of the Forest seems more of an Informed Attribute. Subsequent appearences of Celebi didn't do it any favours, since it kept being defeated by much weaker mons, infamously a Houndour and a Shuppet.
- Trevor from Pokémon the Series: XY is best remembered as the guy who had a Mega Charizard Y... and getting his team completely swept by Alain's Mega Charizard X. While it's unfair to call Trevor weak since he was facing an elite trainer who would eventually become the winner of the tournament, the fact that his match was the first one of the Kalos League and was clearly telegraphed to show Mega Charizard X's strength meant that Trevor has become synonymous with predestined loser. In fact, fans call any trainer clearly telegraphed to lose to a powerful opponent as getting "Trevor'd", which ironically includes Alain in the Master 8 Tournament, as his first opponent is Leon.
- A popular clip from Pokémon Origins is called "Red's Jolteon fails at life," where despite Jolteon having an ability that absorbs Electric attacks, it gets one-hit KO'd by Rhyhorn's Thunderbolt. Even if one considers that Gen I did not have abilities, it's still a fully-evolved Pokémon with an elemental resist losing to an unevolved Pokémon with awful Special Attack, which could only happen if Jolteon was either really low leveled or at very low HP. By extension, the rest of Red's team other than Charizard qualifies, as a common Alternate Character Interpretation is that he overleveled his starter while neglecting everyone else, like many real-life kids playing the games did.
Video Games
- The Bulbasaur line was ignored by many fans in favour of Blastoise and Charizard, due to players picking the starter that was on their game cartridge. Even though its final evolution, Venusaur, got some more attention in generations V and VI, it's still portrayed as the runt among the Kanto starters by fans, though this has started to change.
- The Chikorita line gets this even worse than Bulbasaur due to its final evolution Meganium's relatively cutesy design and shallow movepool. It infamously struggles hard in Johto due to being at a disadvantage in a large number of major battles in its own region, and it doesn't help that it's been a Low-Tier Letdown in competitive play since around Gen V.
- Amongst the four trade-evolution Pokémon from gen I, Golem tends to be treated as the Butt-Monkey that no one's able to take seriously and is forgotten about compared to the other three. This is because Alakazam and Gengar are considered to be two of the strongest Pokémon of Gen I, and still are with each passing generation. Meanwhile, Machamp started off okay, but eventually gained a massive following over the years. Particularly after Machamp was given an ability in No Guard that paired perfectly with Dynamic Punch to make it perfectly accurate, which gave it a unique niche in competitive play. Meanwhile, other than getting an Alolan variant in Gen VII, Golem's been left to rot. While the other three were commonly seen in unique trainer teams to the point of being staples of their types, Golem was barely used by trainers, and nobody uses one in its debut — perhaps because it's the final form of a Com Mon, and perhaps because its disastrous weaknesses to Water- and Grass-type moves make it a pushover against most late-game teams. This is pushed further in competitive circles, where Golem was OU in the first generation for over a decade, only for it to drop to NU thanks to some new discoveries destroying its old niche and causing it to be seen as a worse Rhydon. Not even being a great Pokémon in Gen II OU could save it after that, as later generations weren't much kinder to it.
- Flareon, despite its popularity, has a reputation for being the weakest of the Eeveelutions. In addition to its poorly-optimized stat spread making it a slow Glass Cannon that's easy to take out with physical attacks, it's well-known for having a terrible movepool in most generations, being a victim of the lack of a physical/special split in the first three and infamously being stuck with the 65-power Fire Fang as its best physical STAB move until Pokémon X and Y gave it Flare Blitz. Eevee also tends to be fairly hard to obtain in the earlier games, sometimes being limited to one, so evolving it into Flareon is seen as a waste of its potential.
- Bruno has this reputation among challenge-runners of the first-generation games, due to him being generally regarded as the easiest major fight in the game. He's a Fighting-type specialist in a region where Fighting is underpowered and Psychic is one of the best types in the game, his Fighting-types are not particularly fast and have poor movesets, and his non-Fighting team members consist of two Onix. While many innocuous battles can turn into surprising roadblocks, it's rare to find a playthrough where Bruno's whole team doesn't go down in one hit each, much less one where he actually manages to knock the player out. Because of this, runs enjoy mocking his poor performance, often skimming over him entirely or referring to him as a generic Hiker rather than an Elite Four member.
- Ledian is often mocked by the fandom, even more so than the other Bug-type Crutch Character Pokémon. Part of the reason is that, despite learning several punching moves and having Iron Fist as its hidden ability, it has a base Attack stat of 35, on par with such muscle-bound brawlers as Kadabra. It's often the punchline of jokes mocking the "win using your favorites" mindset.
- Prior to release of Pokémon Black and White, Oshawott were seen as huge Memetic Losers who were ugly, sad-looking, and weren't as cool as Snivy (or "Smugleaf"). This led to a near instant meme of portraying them as The Woobie. After release though, the meme died out due to the fact that it evolves into the reasonably Badass Adorable Dewott and then into the straight up badass Samurott.
- Popplio had similar reactions to Oshawott upon its reveal prior to the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon. Just like Oshawott, this mostly dissipated when its evolved forms were revealed.
- Out of the three teams of Pokémon GO, Team Instinct is the one that's most often mocked as stupid and weak due to being the smallest team and for having the least threatening-looking leader. The other teams are not immune to this, however. Team Valor is often stereotyped as being absurdly reckless and obsessive. Team Mystic (and Valor) can also be this in areas where they lack strength.
- Rather contradictory to his status as a bit of a Memetic Badass, it isn’t uncommon for Blue Oak to be a Butt-Monkey in the Japanese fandom and in Japanese fanworks, especially his post-second generation self, whether it be being the victim of Red’s and the HGSS protagonists’ antics or his childish, bratty behavior and catchphrases in the first generation being (affectionately) mocked. Even in the English fandom he’s often the victim of Hello, [Insert Name Here] hijinks, though this is due to his aforementioned bratty personality.
- Most Pokémon Diamond and Pearl fanworks, as well as Pokémon Masters, have the female protagonist, Dawn, as the main character. This leaves her Spear Counterpart, Lucas, left as Rowan's assistant aka the secondary rival (with Barry being the primary rival). Lucas often gets shoved into a Butt-Monkey role because his role as NPC isn't really that important after the midway point of the game. His implied crush on Dawn turns him into an Abhorrent Admirer, if Dawn even notices it. And that's for people who actually remember that he exists in the first place since Lucas was notorious for being left out in other Pokémon media, most notably in Pokémon Generations, a series that gives full priority to the male protagonists. By 2021, when Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl was released, fans were genuinely (and delightfully) surprised that Lucas managed to squeak out a cameo in Pokémon Evolutions as well as finally being announced for Masters as a playable character at the tail-end of the year due to how long he's been forgotten prior.
- Speaking of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, the Team Galactic grunts are often made fun of because of their... unusual fashion style and hair cuts.
- Though a Memetic Badass among some, Red's Distaff Counterpart Leaf gets this due to being Exiled from Continuity. Red is a reoccurring character in the games and is both a Memetic Badass with fans and Famed In-Story with canon. Leaf on the other hand has been absent ever since her appearance in FireRed and LeafGreen, with implications being (unlike most other opposite-gender protagonists) she just doesn't exist in canon. Leaf is thus the object of many jokes and is portrayed in Red and Blue's shadows. However, this portrayal has also led to her being portrayed as an Iron Woobie. Eventually, Leaf does return after being absent for more than a decade after her debut as an alternate skin of the returning Pokémon Trainer (himself based on Red) in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
- Arceus, despite essentially being God Himself, is constantly having arse jokes made about its name. This isn't actually how it's pronounced, but that doesn't remotely stop the jokes.
- Regigigas will quite possibly remain in this status as long as it retains in signature Ability, Slow Start, which halves its Attack and Speed for an excruciating five turns, despite really lacking the movepool to stall out those turns and just begging foes to force it out with Roar or Dragon Tail. It's often seen as the worst Legendary in the entire series, even being outclassed by evolved Com Mons like Raticate and Stoutland, leaving it largely as the butt of jokes. And just to add insult to injury, when it puts in a post-game appearance in Pokémon Legends: Arceus a game that completely excludes Pokémon abilities, the devs still saw fit to make sure it had Slow Start anyway.
- Slaking will forever be remembered as the mon that starts as a pathetic sloth, seems to gain vitality and strength as Vigoroth, and ends up with stats on the same level as Groudon or Kyogre... but with an ability that makes it unable to attack every other turn, turning it from a terrifying offensive threat to one of the worst Pokémon in the game.
- Diantha is generally regarded as one of the worst Champions in the series, suffering not only from a fairly easy battle (even though her team is hardly weak), but also a dearth of screentime beforehand, ultimately not leaving much of an impression.
- Raichu is the butt of many jokes in the fandom because it lives in the shadow of its pre-evolutions Pichu and especially Pikachu. Most non-fans don't even know that Pikachu does evolve, resulting in a fan joke that Game Freak probably regret creating Raichu. Even Game Freak themselves got in on the joke, as one of its Pokédex entries in Sun and Moon outright lampshades its unpopularity.Because so many Trainers like the way Pikachu looks, you don't see this Pokémon very often.
- Zygarde is widely mocked due to the fact that, despite clearly being designed in the vein of similar "third legendaries" like Giratina, Rayquaza, and Kyurem, it never received a spotlight game or any meaningful expansion on its original concept of a protector against natural disasters, with its new formes ended up being shunted into Pokémon Sun and Moon as a plot-irrelevant Collection Sidequest. It doesn't help much that in its debut appearance, it was basically just a strictly worse Garchomp due to lacking its signature move and ability. The anime did reduce a bit of this status but it still sticks with it. In Pokémon Sword and Shield, more specifically in the Crown Tundra DLC, it took back a bit of ground since it becomes the hardest Dynamax Legendary to fight. Twelve years down the line, however, Zygarde finally shed this reputation with the announcement of Pokemon Legends Z-A, giving it its long-overdue spotlight game at a time where most people were expecting a Unova remake—before long, people were reworking the old memes mocking Zygarde to be about its triumphant return to form.
- Pokémon Sun and Moon‘s evil team, Team Skull, has this status for trying way too hard to be cool and not actually being that evil when you get down to it. It really helps that their leader, Guzma, is a silly Large Ham doofus. Anyone can see that they’re far more comic relief than legitimate threat. This is intentional, however, as it makes them very unique among the Pokémon villain teams for being much more lighthearted than the previous evil teams. It also hides that the Aether Foundation are the game’s true villain threat. Fans typically rank them in the top three best Pokémon villain teams specifically because of their endearing loser status in the fandom, with Team Rocket and Team Plasma typically as their competition. While the developers made them losers on purpose, the fans have run with it and love them for it.
- In all of his appearances, Alder has never won a single fight so some view him as this. Worst is, Alder actually never beat the previous Unova Champion; he was given the title. Several people also prefer Iris over him. Poor guy can't catch a break.
- While otherwise every bit The Champion the game and fandom portray him as Leon quite simply couldn't find his way home on a straight road without his younger brother's help. This often extends in fanworks to him stumbling into alternate realities and different points in time just to get somewhere mundane.
- Hisuian Avalugg. Its Kalosian counterpart was already a Low-Tier Letdown due to being a Mighty Glacier with a type more suited for a Glass Cannon or Fragile Speedster, so many fans were excited to see how it would fare in Legends Arceus, since it's a game that turned other lackluster Pokémon such as Goodra, Basculin, and Ursaring into more than respectable mons. Instead, it received a set of traits that seem almost designed to be useless: the Rock type, literally the only thing that could've made it defensively weaker; a boost to Speed that still leaves it only slightly faster than Slowbro; an ability (Strong Jaw, which boosts biting attacks) that can only be used with two of its moves (Ice Fang and Crunch); and a signature move (Mountain Gale) with a chance to flinch the opponent, despite the fact that it's too slow to ever outspeed and flinch anything. To quote Magcarjoe:Magcarjoe: Now listen little Timmy, I want you to look me, look me right in the eyes and say "Gamefreak had no malicious intent in making a defensive Pokémon have the worst dual typing in the entire game [...] But it gets worse, oh it gets worse: They had the audacity to give this thing with more weaknesses than a man with glass bones and paper skin stats like it's a tank. Oh yeah, it's definitely a tank, too bad the tank they based it off it's the goddamn Tog, fine defense right there, oh movement speed? What's that? This is absolutely not a TOG2 moment.
- For the standards of Champions, Geeta from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has a bad team and an even worse strategy to use them.Explanation Because of this, combined with the hint that she's a Pointy-Haired Boss to fan-favorite Larry, she's come to be portrayed as a fumbling embarrassment to the title and concept of Champion. To put this in perspective, even Guzma, the above-mentioned silly Large Ham doofus, the guy whose childhood bedroom is filled with bronze trophies and a single silver trophy, the guy who flunked out of his region's equivalent of the Gym Challenge, is still competent enough to use his own ace properly, sending it out first to take full advantage of both its ability and Signature Move. Even when the Indigo Disk corrected this and had her send Glimmora out first and her Kingambit out last (complete with Tera-Flying to dodge its weaknesses to Ground and Fighting), by then it was too late.
- Pokémon with dual typings that are 4x weak to Grass, like Rock/Ground, Rock/Water, and Water/Ground, often get clowned on in memes. They are often depicted as being gravely injured or outright dying when they come in contact with a single blade of grass or a leaf. Similarly, Pokémon that are 4x weak to Water (with the exception of Magcargo) get depicted as instantly dying if they get splashed with a bit of water or get caught in the rain.
- Delcatty gets mocked a lot for having a rather low 380 base stat total for what's supposed to be a fully evolved Pokémon, which basically puts it in line with the fully evolved early Bugs. However, you have to wait longer to get Delcatty due to it being a Moon Stone evolution — for a lot of people, the wait for such an abysmal Pokémon later in the game isn't worth it. Delcatty got buffed up to 400 BST from Gen VII onward alongside receiving a buff to its Normalize ability, but even then, its reputation as a weak Pokémon has stuck with it. It's also known for being heavily Out of Focus in the later games, leading to jokes that Game Freak forgot Delcatty even existed — while it and Skitty were fairly prominent in the Gen III games, since then, they've rarely appeared in any regional dexes, with their last non-remake appearance being in X and Y.
- Spidops, introduced in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, is frequently mocked for being a weak Crutch Character reminiscent of earlier Bug-types in a generation infamous for major Power Creep in its new Pokémon. The fact that fellow early two-stage Bug family, Nymble/Lokix, has an only somewhat better BST but also a far better movepool, stat spread, and general gameplay direction that makes it surprisingly decent, even by Gen IX standards, makes Spidops look especially embarrassing by comparison.
- Since the release of Scarlet and Violet, Corviknight has often been portrayed as a hapless victim of Tinkaton, who will hunt and attack Corviknight to the point that they've been deemed unsafe to use as transportation in Paldea. This is despite Tinkaton's dex entry calling this act "daring", implying that Tinkaton does this for the challenge and that Corviknight usually comes out on top in their encounters.
- Seviper and Heatmor are often mocked for being considered drastically inferior to their respective rivals, Zangoose and Durant. Heatmor in particular is well-known for the fact that Durant, a Pokémon which has a double weakness to its Fire type and which it eats in large quantities, can outspeed it and One-Hit KO it with a Rock- or Ground-type coverage move.
- Electivire is often treated as a loser for a number of reasons. For starters, it's saddled with being a physical Electric-type, an archetype that's notoriously poor in competitive Pokémon as detailed below. Two things make Electivire stand out from others of its ilk, however; the first is its status as a noob trap in its debut generation, as the "Gyaravire" core, in which it was paired with the much stronger Gyarados in order to (in theory) cover each other's offensive weaknesses, gained significant popularity despite being predictable and easy to beat in practice. This resulted in Electivire being locked into Generation IV OU by the end of its lifespan despite having no viability there. The second is its divisive design, with many fans of its pre-evolution Electabuzz finding it to be a goofy-looking downgrade to the Electric Pokémon.
- Iron Jugulis usually isn't taken seriously by fans, for a couple of reasons. In addition to its funny name and being considered one of the least inspired Paradox Pokémon in terms of design, it's also mocked for inheriting Charizard's "curse" of being a dragon Pokémon that isn't even Dragon-type, in 2022.note Fans speculate that something must have gone wrong during the Hydreigon-robot mating ritual that allegedly created the species. Even in battles, it can't learn Hydreigon's best nuke option of Draco Meteornote and has to settle with the Awesome, but Impractical Hurricane instead. It's one of the more mediocre Paradox Pokémon on Smogon and has only niche viability in VGC, and the fact that it's a counterpart to the exceedingly overpowered Flutter Mane is often used as an example of Game Freak favoring Scarlet over Violet when it comes to version exclusives.
- Some Pokémon, while well-liked among the casual fanbase, have an infamous reputation among the competitive community of Smogon:
- Charizard, due to its extreme popularity among the general fandom causing it to be used ridiculously often by noobs despite its crippling flaws (such as its huge Stealth Rock weakness, subpar bulk, and not-that-great base offensive stats), usually leading to said noobs being curb-stomped. It's particularly notable in this role in Gen 1 competitive play, where it's completely outclassed by Moltres in OU, but still somehow gets used on low ladder. This did get fixed to some extent in Gen VI due to the introduction of two very strong Mega Evolutions for it, but the base form is still considered this, as well as any versions of it in Ubers. It has since been booted back here after the 8th gen’s removal of Mega Evolution killing any viability it had (and Dynamax being banned from most formats including Ubers, which forbids use of its otherwise excellent Gigantamax form, doesn't help). Other Pokémon which end up in tiers far above where they're actually viable due to their popularity, such as Jolteon, Typhlosion, and Donphan, also get mocked, but not to the same degree.
- Crowned Zamazenta receives this treatment due to being designed as a defensive-oriented counterpart to Zacian, yet lacking the tools to excel in this role in Ubers, and at one point, being ranked lower than its Hero of Many Battles forme in the viability rankingnote . To add insult to injury, Zamazenta received a Nerf to both its stats and its Dauntless Shield ability despite being nowhere near as overwhelming as Zacian was, and Regidrago's Dragon's Maw remained intact but Regieleki's Transistor got nerfed, showing that exceptions can be made but not for Zamazenta.
- Virizion, Tapu Bulu, and Wo-Chien are often lumped together as a friend group of complete losers due to sharing the dishonor of being Grass-type members of Legendary quartets where they're far weaker than their fellow members. Tapu Bulu in particular is the butt of many jokes where its position as the Guardian of Ula'Ula Island is usurped by the non-legendary Rillaboom, another Pokémon with its Grassy Surge ability who can utilize the terrain summoned far better.
- Quite a few Pokémon start off as competitive mainstays or outright Game Breakers, but due to Power Creep or outright nerfs, start to tumble out of their once-lofty positions, which invariably causes this. Tauros, for instance, was considered the scariest Pokémon outside of Mewtwo and Mew in the first generation, but the many axes taken to its stats, its Normal typing, and its main moves caused it to decline all the way to the ignominious tier of ZUBL in Gen IX (as in, it was banned from the lowest available tier and is nonviable in any higher tier). This creates a lot of jokes about them having peaked in high school, abruptly getting fired from their once-stable jobs, or getting clowned on by Pokémon they were once considered far superior to.
- Physical Electric-type Pokémon, most notably Luxray, are often a target of mockery for their perennial lack of good STAB moves, and consequently being doomed to Low-Tier Letdown status as a result. The best STAB option for most of them, Wild Charge, is a Scrappy Weapon for having the same base power as Thunderbolt, but recoil damage and no paralysis chance, leading to jokes that Game Freak blatantly favors special Electric-types over physical ones. The ones which evade this status, such as Zeraora and Pawmot, have better signature moves to fill this role. This has been downplayed to a certain extent by the introduction of Supercell Slam, an Electric-type counterpart to Jump Kick, but the issue of massive recoil still exists should the move miss or be nullified by ubiquitous Ground-types.
- Articuno, despite being quite powerful in the lore and independently popular due to its pleasing design, has becomes something of a byword for an underwhelming Legendary since Generation II, when the Special split caused it to take a harsh cut to its offense. The short version is, while Articuno has high stats overall, they're distributed such that its only standout stat is Special Defense, and it also has an Ice/Flying typing that gives it some major issues as a wall (particularly a x4 Rock weakness that turns Stealth Rock into a death sentence). Though it's far from the only Legendary to not perform well competitively, or even the worst onenote , its miserable tiering placements over multiple generations coupled with First Installment Wins makes it something of a default pick when discussing why legendaries aren't necessarily banworthy. That said, Articuno did manage to take back some ground when player Nikhil Reddy won a VGC tournament while running a bizarrely simplistic Articuno setnote that nonetheless paid off thanks to good team support.
