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#54: Scrafty (and Scraggy)
These guys have style, in a way only a lizard that wears its molted skin like high school kids wear baggy pants can have style. They have a unique Dark/Fighting type, a typing that has incredible neutral coverage. He has good defensive stats, allowing him to play a role of a bulky sweeper, and while he doesn’t have that high an Attack stat, he can boost it easily with moves like Dragon Dance (which also boosts his low Speed) and Bulk Up, as well as his ability Moxie. He also can have the Shed Skin ability, as a way to shrug off status, possibly even giving him an early wake-up from Rest. From the Dream World, he gets Intimidate, which has its uses as well. All this makes Scrafty a stylish Pokemon that can very easily beat down his opponents.
#53: Chandelure (and pre-evolutions)
This guy’s a ghost chandelier. That in and of itself is a huge win, concept-wise. He’s a major competitive force, too; he has an absolutely insane base Special Attack of 145. To put that in perspective, that is only 5 points below the Special Attack of freaking Reshiram. He also gets Flash Fire to punish anyone throwing out Fire attacks willy-nilly (and making his own Fire attacks that much more devastating), or Flame Body to punish physical attackers. This is an awesome Pokemon with a great concept and absolutely devastating firepower (literally!). It’s also worth noting that he has, of all things, Shadow Tag as a Dream World ability, which makes him so broken that Chandelure is actually one of the very few non-starter, non-legendary Pokemon not yet to be officially release with his Dream World ability. Even Nintendo could tell how overpowered he’d be.
#52: Reuniclus (and pre-evolutions)
Check out this funky guy. His concept is based on organic cells, which is a very interesting concept that comes with a very unique design. He has a very high Special Attack, which is normal for Psychic-types, and very good overall defensive stats, which is not normal. His only “weak” stat is an incredibly low base Speed, which is actually a blessing in disguise as it makes Reuniclus possibly the best Pokemon to use Trick Room. What really makes Reuniclus dangerous is his Magic Guard ability, which I mentioned earlier with Clefable as being an amazing ability, and keeps Reuniclus safe from Life Orb recoil, entry hazard damage, weather damage, and Toxic/Burn damage; this combined with Recover, Calm Mind, and Reuniclus’s solid defenses make him incredibly difficult to knock out. Whether you want to use him for Trick Room or a more standard Calm Mind set, this funky guy will not disappoint.
#51: Scizor
Hoo boy. This guy is the #1 Pokemon in Smogon’s standard OU, and for good reason. First of all, he has an awesome design that definitely looks like he tears apart everything in his path. His Bug/Steel typing is very good, giving him numerous resistances and a lone (albeit crippling) weakness to Fire. He has a very high Attack stat and solid defenses; his Speed is a bit low, but this ends up not being that much of a problem. His Technician ability is one of his biggest draws, especially as he learns Bullet Punch, a Steel-type Quick Attack that is normally pretty weak, but with STAB, Technician, and Scizor’s high Attack, it becomes his best attack, bypassing his low Speed and dealing a good amount of damage quickly, making him great at picking off weakened opponents. Other attacks in his arsenal include U-turn, a very useful move that allows him to scout out opponents and make a switch while still doing good damage, Bug Bite, his strongest Bug-type attack factoring in Technician, Pursuit, and Superpower. He also gets Swords Dance to power up his moves, as well as Roost if you want to go a more defensive route. Heck, he even gets Baton Pass and Iron Defense if you want to use him on a Baton Pass team! There’s no doubt why this guy’s the most popular Pokemon in the competitive scene, and the only reason he isn’t higher is because, honestly, I’m not a huge fan of super-powerful Pokemon. And yet, I cannot ignore how cool Scizor is, and everything he is capable of on the battlefield.
#50: Sigilyph
…what is up with this guy’s design? Probably the strangest, funkiest-looking Pokemon in the entire game, Sigilyph exists to be the weird guy. And just like the previously-mentioned funky Pokemon, Reuniclus, this guy gets the awesome ability Magic Guard, removing his Stealth Rock weakness entirely and making him hard to take down. Sigilyph does have decent offensive stats and a good movepool with Psychic, Psyshock, Air Slash, Heat Wave, and Energy Ball, as well as Roost combined with okay defenses and Magic Guard, that make a straight up offensive set with a Life Orb effective. You can also go a trickier route with Sigilyph, by taking advantage of Magic Guard and giving him a Flame Orb, giving him a burn that has no effect on him and keeps him safe from more dangerous status effects, and then using Psycho Shift to throw that burn onto an opponent. He also has a dangerous combo in which he uses Cosmic Power to increase his overall defenses, and then attacks with Stored Power, an attack that grows more powerful the more stat boosts he has; combined with the aforementioned Psycho Shift-burning strategy, Magic Guard, and Roost, makes it easy to get all six boosts and end up with an attack with a Base Power of 260 (390 with STAB), all while being impossible to knock out. This guy is definitely one of the funkiest Pokemon out there, in both his design and his unusual but deadly battle strategies.
#49: Togekiss (and Togepi)
As cute as Togepi is, with her Metronome-happy ways, her initial evolution in Togetic is kind of awkward-looking. With lackluster stats, Togetic is overall a disappointment. Thankfully, in Gen IV, she gets a new evolution in Togekiss. Togekiss’s design is nicer and more elegant, and her stats are far better, having very nice defensive stats (particularly Special Defense) while also having a high Special Attack. That said, as cute as Togekiss is, she is secretly a monster, wielding an Air Slash that, combined with her Serene Grace ability, gives her a 60% chance of flinching an opponent—and that’s not accounting for all the Nasty Plotting she’s doing beforehand! She’s nice enough to your team, though, with access to Heal Bell. She also has some cool additional coverage moves in Aura Sphere and Flamethrower/Fire Blast, and access to Roost just makes her that much harder to take down. And, of course, there’s always Metronome for random fun!
#48: Sceptile (and pre-evolutions)
The next starter Pokemon enters my list, and it is Gen III’s grass lizard Sceptile. Sceptile is unusual among Grass-types in that he’s a fast, offensive Grass-type that does not need to rely on sun for his speed. A good Special Attack with nice moves like Giga Drain, Leaf Storm, and an excellent coverage move in Focus Blast makes Sceptile a strong special attacker. However, Sceptile can make a potentially threatening physical attacker despite his rather average Attack stat, as he can use Swords Dance and has moves like Leaf Blade, Drain Punch, Earthquake, and Rock Slide; furthermore, if you got one with the Dream World ability Unburden, you can use the killer Flying Gem + Acrobatics combo and get a doubled speed on top of all of that! His design is also awesome.
#47: Froslass
Snorunt was kind of neat, but Glalie is a boring ball of ice with all Base 80 stats. Thankfully, in Gen IV GameFreak gave Snorunt an awesome new evolution in Froslass. Froslass is based on the yuki-onna, a Japanese mythical being that preys upon those lost in the cold. Froslass has the unique and very neat typing of Ghost/Ice, and while most of her stats are still rather average, she does have a much higher Base Speed. In competitive battling, this gives her one particular niche: she can easily lay down Spikes, she has a fast Taunt to stop others from stopping her from using Spikes, and being a Ghost-type, she automatically foils any attempts to Rapid Spin those Spikes away. This may not seem like much, but it was enough to get her banned from the UU tier, as she was just too good at her job. Overall, though, Froslass is a very interesting, unique Pokemon. (There; I refrained from ever using the word “cool” to describe Froslass.)
#46: Kingdra
The second Dragon to come to existence, and even back in Gen II when he had nothing in the way of a movepool, Kingdra was a significant improvement over Seadra, especially as it lacked notable weaknesses (pretty much no one used Dragon attacks in Gen II). Across the span of Gen IV, it got better as it gained new moves to use outside of Surf; it had a physical Water STAB in Waterfall that could be boosted with Dragon Dance, it had a notable Dragon STAB in Draco Meteor and Dragon Pulse, and then it got Outrage for a physical Dragon STAB. What really made Kingdra threatening was that the only Pokemon that resisted both Water and Dragon were Empoleon and Shedinja, meaning it didn't need much else other than its STAB attacks, leaving room for things like Dragon Dance, Rain Dance (to take advantage of Swift Swim), and other supporting moves. While now the dangerous Ferrothorn is among the list of Water/Dragon resistors, and in Smogon's OU tier it cannot be on the same team as Drizzle Politoed, it is still a major threat, especially as it can easily turn a rain team's weather against them. Of course, in-game no one cares if you use him with Drizzle--and the same applies with Ubers, where Kingdra actually does quite well. All in all, Kingdra is a perfect representative of the water dragons, especially with how he dominates in Rain.
#45: Porygon-Z (and pre-evolutions)
This is really an entry for Porygon2 and Porygon-Z, who are in many ways very different Pokemon. Porygon2 has solid defensive stats, but more importantly, he can equip an Eviolite to become particularly difficult to take down. His good Special Attack means that he can dish out damage as well as take it, and he has three great abilities to use: Download, against the right opponent, can net him a free Special Attack boost; Trace is a very neat ability that allows him to particularly counter certain Pokemon (or just get a really nice ability to sweep with); Dream World ability Analytic is an ability that works well with Porygon2's low Speed to power up his attacks most of the time.
While Porygon2 is a bulky attacker, Porygon-Z is an outright glass cannon. His defensive stats aren't horrible, but compared to Porygon2 they're much worse, especially considering the lack of Eviolite. In exchange, he has a bit better Speed and much higher Special Attack. Porygon-Z is an oddball computerized duck of destruction. In addition to Porygon2's Download (and Analytic, though it isn't quite as good with his higher Speed), he also gets Adaptability, which takes his Normal-type Tri Attack STAB and gives it a boost in power, allowing him to do a ton of damage.
Both Porygon2 and Porygon-Z get all sorts of cool moves to attack with, such as Ice Beam, Thunderbolt/Discharge, Dark Pulse, and assorted extra moves like Recover, Toxic, and Trick Room for the slower, defensive Porygon2 or Agility, Nasty Plot, and Trick for the more offensive Porygon-Z. Both also use Tri Attack for STAB, which is a fun move that can either burn, freeze, or paralyze an opponent. These are definitely very interesting electronic ducks.
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