Counting Sheep - A Pokemon Trainer quest

[X] Aspiration: You want that. That confidence, that awe-inspiring presence. A mountain stood before you, but someday, you swore that you would reach the top, you would demand the World bend to you-and it would Obey.
[X][Plan: Light Em Up!]

[X] Aspiration: You want that. That confidence, that awe-inspiring presence. A mountain stood before you, but someday, you swore that you would reach the top, you would demand the World bend to you-and it would Obey.
[X][Plan: Light Em Up!]

@TempestK totodile best, it has absolutely no thoughts running through its head only bite and not bite

[X][Frisson] You knew Named Pokémon were strong. You knew they were on a whole different level. But actually seeing them... It was like staring up at the stars on an empty field. Like seeing the immensity of space, and realizing, for the first time, just how small you were. Just a speck of dust, floating aimlessly in the cosmos. And yet... Cassiopeia was one of the weakest Named. They wrap the world around them. Knowing that... What could you feel, except excitememt? Like the moment of weightlessness on a rollercoaster, the frisson of thrill just before the drop. Marigold and you would be like that, one day. You would. Seeing the road that awaited you, the challenges that lay ahead... what could you feel, except that?
[X][Plan: Light Em Up!]

I'm probably going about themes the exact wrong way - thinking of what Pokemon I'd like to see us get and then working backwards to think of a theme that encompasses them lol. Like, I love Eevee and with just two Pokemon it's pretty easy to come up with ideas that cover both Mareep and Eevee. The idea of psychic pokemon in this setting seems like it could be really interesting so I'd be interested in getting a Psychic type too.

A few ideas I've been kicking around in my head are stuff like: Cute/Beautiful Pokemon, but since that may be too broad, maybe add the restriction that they also literally have the Beautiful trait like Marigold does. With a sample idea being something like: Marigold, Eevee(lution), Ralts line, Vulpix line, Petilil line, Flabebe line or something like that. There's plenty of options there which is why I'm not sure it would work as a theme. Though this update and Joan's mindset got me wondering if we couldn't add a twist to it with Pokemon who are stereotypically thought of as cute but who personally chafe a bit at being solely defined by that by others. Would result in them having some out-of-the-box/not-what-you'd-expect type moves like a Florges that has Giga Impact or a Vulpix with Iron Tail. Stuff like that. Only probably better planned out by those in the thread who know Pokemon way better than me lol.

[X] Aspiration: You want that. That confidence, that awe-inspiring presence. A mountain stood before you, but someday, you swore that you would reach the top, you would demand the World bend to you-and it would Obey.

I like the idea but the wording slightly scares me. Feels like something from a villains backstory.

[X][Frisson] You knew Named Pokémon were strong. You knew they were on a whole different level. But actually seeing them... It was like staring up at the stars on an empty field. Like seeing the immensity of space, and realizing, for the first time, just how small you were. Just a speck of dust, floating aimlessly in the cosmos. And yet... Cassiopeia was one of the weakest Named. They wrap the world around them. Knowing that... What could you feel, except excitememt? Like the moment of weightlessness on a rollercoaster, the frisson of thrill just before the drop. Marigold and you would be like that, one day. You would. Seeing the road that awaited you, the challenges that lay ahead... what could you feel, except that?

I like this one.

[X][Frisson] You knew Named Pokémon were strong. You knew they were on a whole different level. But actually seeing them... It was like staring up at the stars on an empty field. Like seeing the immensity of space, and realizing, for the first time, just how small you were. Just a speck of dust, floating aimlessly in the cosmos. And yet... Cassiopeia was one of the weakest Named. They wrap the world around them. Knowing that... What could you feel, except excitememt? Like the moment of weightlessness on a rollercoaster, the frisson of thrill just before the drop. Marigold and you would be like that, one day. You would. Seeing the road that awaited you, the challenges that lay ahead... what could you feel, except that?

[X][Frisson] You knew Named Pokémon were strong. You knew they were on a whole different level. But actually seeing them... It was like staring up at the stars on an empty field. Like seeing the immensity of space, and realizing, for the first time, just how small you were. Just a speck of dust, floating aimlessly in the cosmos. And yet... Cassiopeia was one of the weakest Named. They wrap the world around them. Knowing that... What could you feel, except excitememt? Like the moment of weightlessness on a rollercoaster, the frisson of thrill just before the drop. Marigold and you would be like that, one day. You would. Seeing the road that awaited you, the challenges that lay ahead... what could you feel, except that?

[X][Plan: Light Em Up!]
-[X] Start off by figuring out what Marigold's upper limits are. How much charge can she store before she can't move? Or simply can't hold any more of a charge?
-[X] From there work into expressing the charge, and try to get across the idea of projecting it in a concentrated form instead of spreading it on the ground. Ask for some help from Yasigi as a safe target.
-[X] Don't go in for trying to train Take Down just yet, as young as she is the backlash of the move could hurt her quite a bit. Just focus on her being able to recognize when she's hitting the point that she needs to shed a charge.
-[X] If we manage to get Marigold to figure out Thundershock, the next step will be control. Making sure that she doesn't blow her entire charge on the first strike.

I also like Frission better than Aspiration. As for the training plan, it's pretty much the basics for Marigold, and so I'm fine with not adjusting it. I'm still hung up on Magnet Rise but that can come later I guess.

[X] Aspiration: You want that. That confidence, that awe-inspiring presence. A mountain stood before you, but someday, you swore that you would reach the top, you would demand the World bend to you-and it would Obey.

[X][Frisson] You knew Named Pokémon were strong. You knew they were on a whole different level. But actually seeing them... It was like staring up at the stars on an empty field. Like seeing the immensity of space, and realizing, for the first time, just how small you were. Just a speck of dust, floating aimlessly in the cosmos. And yet... Cassiopeia was one of the weakest Named. They wrap the world around them. Knowing that... What could you feel, except excitememt? Like the moment of weightlessness on a rollercoaster, the frisson of thrill just before the drop. Marigold and you would be like that, one day. You would. Seeing the road that awaited you, the challenges that lay ahead... what could you feel, except that?

[X][Plan: Light Em Up!]
-[X] Start off by figuring out what Marigold's upper limits are. How much charge can she store before she can't move? Or simply can't hold any more of a charge?
-[X] From there work into expressing the charge, and try to get across the idea of projecting it in a concentrated form instead of spreading it on the ground. Ask for some help from Yasigi as a safe target.
-[X] Don't go in for trying to train Take Down just yet, as young as she is the backlash of the move could hurt her quite a bit. Just focus on her being able to recognize when she's hitting the point that she needs to shed a charge.
-[X] If we manage to get Marigold to figure out Thundershock, the next step will be control. Making sure that she doesn't blow her entire charge on the first strike.

[X] Aspiration: You want that. That confidence, that awe-inspiring presence. A mountain stood before you, but someday, you swore that you would reach the top, you would demand the World bend to you-and it would Obey.

@TempestK I do like the basic of Light Em Up! That being said, I have a couple of proposals to fine tune it.

The first thing is, that much as was criticised with testing out Electric Terrain, is that you aren't actually training Charge towards something by simply checking what Marigold's maximum charge is. Personally, I'd reccomend training the speed with which she can reach her limit for now. It both fits her battery trait and given that we're also using the discharge to train allows for a quicker cycle that accomadates more over all training.

On a similar note, I don't think training Marigold how to pace her charge should be our biggest concern. Thanks to Battery, stamina is one of her strong points, so teaching her to hold back is not much of a boon. As far as control goes, I'd rather first get her aim in order by having Yasigi graduate to a moving target. She'll need to be able to hit things to best leverage her magnetic sense as an aiming tool in the future.

So, something like this:
-[] Start off by practicing Charge. Once marigold has gotten a feel for it, try to increase the speed with which she can reach her maximum store of electricity.
-[] From there work into expressing the charge, and try to get across the idea of projecting it in a concentrated form instead of spreading it on the ground. Ask for some help from Yasigi as a safe target.
-[] Don't go in for trying to train Take Down just yet, as young as she is the backlash of the move could hurt her quite a bit. Just focus on her being able to recognize when she's hitting the point that she needs to shed a charge.
-[] If we manage to get Marigold to figure out Thundershock, the next step will be control. Have Yasigi start acting as a moving target, so that Marigold needs to adapt her aim. Encourage her to also try to keep track of Yasigi's movement with her magnetic sense.

ReverendSwing said:

Pokemon lucha libre exists ! It's pretty damn niche, though, as it's pretty much exclusively practiced in Alola. Kukui-- I mean, the illustrious Masked Royal came up with it as a natural extension of sorts of his arena persona alongside all his other wacky tourism schemes. This has actually led to a sizeable colony of Hawlucha settling in Alola. The kahunas weren't very impressed.

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The Battle Royal is a sacred tradition dedicated to the Tapus themselves. The fact that hawluchas a prone to embracing it should make them highly popular and the fact that Hala doesn't use one in the Ultra games, despite them living on his island is the ultimate indictment of his character to me. (It also helps that unless their line-up changed for this Quest, Fighting/Flying is a pretty good type to bring against all the Kahunas.)

Honestly, I'm pretty fond of Alola in general. Another place to put in the eventual visit list, I suppose.

blaintintnoob said:

@TempestK totodile best, it has absolutely no thoughts running through its head only bite and not bite

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"To bite, or not to bite: That is the question." And thus totodile Hamlet was born.

Right, I'm back. Voting-wise, I think I'm going to wait until tonight to see what kind of timer I give, even if the training plan seems like it doesn't exactly have much competition.

That said, now that I'm looking at it as something I might have to write I have a question @TempestK : when you say 'Don't go in for trying to train Take Down just yet, as young as she is the backlash of the move could hurt her quite a bit. Just focus on her being able to recognize when she's hitting the point that she needs to shed a charge', what exactly do you mean here ? I'm a bit confused. Are you trying to prepare her for Take Down but not really starting yet ? Just don't want to train it, in which case it'd probably be simpler not to mention it ? Is this about eventually having her try and combine Take Down and Charge, or training in preparation of Thundershock ? I'm just not sure what you mean here.

Sculpt0r said:

Also how big a reference to PGTE are these Named mechanics >_>

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Not as much as you'd think - I've been a sucker for narrative-based systems since I was a kid writing stories about the worlds of my favourite video games and trying to translate their mechanics into something that actually made sense in-story. That said, the whole Named thing in this quest doesn't even rely on that. Named is just a term humans came up with to specify a power level, and it mostly comes down to the fact these pokemon are strong and famous enough that people gave them names. Cassiopeia wouldn't be any less strong if everybody jsut called her 'that Nidoqueen'.

The whole thing about Named Trainers is just me indulging my love for over-the-top shonen nicknames no one would ever actually give anyone, and the idea behind the strongest of pokemon getting names comes from the much-regretted Game of Champions, the king of OG gritty pokemon fanfic. In it, Snorlax are basically equated to natural disasters and given names like you would hurricanes, which is a tidbit I always liked.

PGTE is good stuff though, especially since it obviously tickled my fancies with its whole narrative-based power system. Rough around the edges as all web serials are, and with some definite places where the story drags on or is a little under par, but still solid.

Noxlux013 said:

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

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No worries - just wasn't sure I'd properly conveyed what I was going for ! You're absolutely right that even if by some miracle it succeeded the Dragon would just absolutely murderize its trainer for treating it like this.

Edgedancer said:

The Battle Royal is a sacred tradition dedicated to the Tapus themselves. The fact that hawluchas a prone to embracing it should make them highly popular and the fact that Hala doesn't use one in the Ultra games, despite them living on his island is the ultimate indictment of his character to me. (It also helps that unless their line-up changed for this Quest, Fighting/Flying is a pretty good type to bring against all the Kahunas.)

Honestly, I'm pretty fond of Alola in general. Another place to put in the eventual visit list, I suppose.

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Right, should have been clearer - the Battle Royal is absolutely a sacred tradition dedicated to the Tapus. The slight alterations introduced by Kukui in the wake of the whole Masked Royal thing, which were basically aimed at helping selling the whole thing to TV producers, have given a much larger part to the whole showmanship around wrestling that the kahunas and the more traditional types aren't too crazy about. The Hawlucha annoy the Kahunas because a) they're all about that showmanship and less about respecting the traditions and b) they greatly upset the local ecosystem when they settled in near the stadium.

Kukui has done a lot to help Alola open up more to the world, get more in phase with the times and avoid some of its traditions disappearing by merging the old and the new, but that hasn't always gone as smoothly as he'd wished.

Alola as a region and idea were great though. It's a shame the execution was pretty meh - honestly Sun and Moon aren't exactly the games I was craziest about, even if they were a step up from XY (cries in the worst pokemon games being the ones set in France). Still even easier than DP though. I've heard USUM were better, so maybe that's on me for missing out. They did get me to pick up pokemon again, though, so I'll give them that, but the lore around Alola was cool enough they mostly felt like a missed opportunity.

[X][Frisson] You knew Named Pokémon were strong. You knew they were on a whole different level. But actually seeing them... It was like staring up at the stars on an empty field. Like seeing the immensity of space, and realizing, for the first time, just how small you were. Just a speck of dust, floating aimlessly in the cosmos. And yet... Cassiopeia was one of the weakest Named. They wrap the world around them. Knowing that... What could you feel, except excitememt? Like the moment of weightlessness on a rollercoaster, the frisson of thrill just before the drop. Marigold and you would be like that, one day. You would. Seeing the road that awaited you, the challenges that lay ahead... what could you feel, except that?

[X][Plan: Light Em Up!]

ReverendSwing said:

what exactly do you mean here ? I'm a bit confused. Are you trying to prepare her for Take Down but not really starting yet ? Just don't want to train it, in which case it'd probably be simpler not to mention it ? Is this about eventually having her try and combine Take Down and Charge, or training in preparation of Thundershock ? I'm just not sure what you mean here.

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Sorry, got a little too flowery in my description there. Right now I'm wanting to focus on training Charge in preparation of Thundershock. The "needs to shed a charge" bit was in relation to figuring out when Marigold's charge will fluff her wool to the point of being a hinderance. Take Down got mentioned because I was giving the reasoning behind not training it.

ReverendSwing said:

Alola as a region and idea were great though. It's a shame the execution was pretty meh - honestly Sun and Moon aren't exactly the games I was craziest about, even if they were a step up from XY (cries in the worst pokemon games being the ones set in France). Still even easier than DP though. I've heard USUM were better, so maybe that's on me for missing out. They did get me to pick up pokemon again, though, so I'll give them that, but the lore around Alola was cool enough they mostly felt like a missed opportunity.

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It wasn't Sword and Shield at least? Objectively those are the worst mainline pokemon games so far. R/G/B/Y are the classics, G/S/C started expanding the world and really brought out some of the best changes to the system. R/S/E brought in the idea of Teams having more complex reasons behind their plots besides "money". D/P/P brought in a ton of new lore and scope. B/W/B2/W2 honestly had some of the most interesting and engaging stories. X/Y... well they introduced Mega Evolution which while I'm not personally crazy about, is something that the community as a whole loved. And while the motivations for the Team were pants-on-head stupid; they actually felt like a threat at the end. S/M/US/UM introduced the concept of alien invaders and created one of the most relatable villains in a long time.

And then we come to Galar and just... why.

ReverendSwing said:

Right, should have been clearer - the Battle Royal is absolutely a sacred tradition dedicated to the Tapus. The slight alterations introduced by Kukui in the wake of the whole Masked Royal thing, which were basically aimed at helping selling the whole thing to TV producers, have given a much larger part to the whole showmanship around wrestling that the kahunas and the more traditional types aren't too crazy about. The Hawlucha annoy the Kahunas because a) they're all about that showmanship and less about respecting the traditions and b) they greatly upset the local ecosystem when they settled in near the stadium.

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Half the point of my post might have been to take the chance to rag on Hala, the guy kinda sucks.

ReverendSwing said:

Alola as a region and idea were great though. It's a shame the execution was pretty meh - honestly Sun and Moon aren't exactly the games I was craziest about, even if they were a step up from XY (cries in the worst pokemon games being the ones set in France). Still even easier than DP though. I've heard USUM were better, so maybe that's on me for missing out. They did get me to pick up pokemon again, though, so I'll give them that, but the lore around Alola was cool enough they mostly felt like a missed opportunity.

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Yeah, that's a fair take. Sun and Moon to me are kind of the poster child for "Gamefreak still has ideas, they just can't keep up with their strict development cycle now that the games have grown more technically demanding."

The Ultra games do step up the difficulty somewhat by giving most of your named enemies EV trained pokemon and in some cases better/larger teams. They still aren't especially difficulty, but then I never really associated the Pokemon franchise with difficulty. (Well, beyond having to bite out your teeth on Brock, depending on your starter, but that kind of difficulty falls away pretty quickly as soon as you get some actual team variety.) USUM also add some more story to Necrozma that ties in with Z crystals/power that's technically neat, but grafted very clumsily onto the original in a way that creates a frankenstein of a narrative, which is a shame given that Sun and Moon arguably have some of the better pokemon stories... assuming you have enough tolerance for the cutscene railroads to not be annoyed by it on principle.

TempestK said:

Sorry, got a little too flowery in my description there. Right now I'm wanting to focus on training Charge in preparation of Thundershock. The "needs to shed a charge" bit was in relation to figuring out when Marigold's charge will fluff her wool to the point of being a hinderance.

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Alright thanks, that's mostly what I figured but I just wanted to make sure I had it right before I started trying to work out what shape that would take if it won !

And eh, the DLC did a lot to redeem S/Sh (and while the fact it's behind a paywall annoys me to no end, every 'here's another full-price slightly more complete version of a game you already own' was also a paywall in its way) but more importantly I was talking more about the actual gaming experience rather than just the concept behind them. I actually liked Kalos well enough, the game was just so insultingly easy and handholdy, and none of the 'extra' content had the kind of oomph that made it memorable, especially in the wake of B2/W2 which honestly were for me the pinnacle of 'classic' pokemon, even if I personally don't have much of an emotional connection to them.

Gen 8 did introduce Dynamaxing, and while I'm personally not too crazy about it, as a VGC dabbler it's introduced some pretty fun puzzles and I've had more fun with it than with Megas competitively, though I mostly thought Megas were a bit of a wasted opportunity in the first place what with how many of them went to pokemon that didn't really need to get extra strong. It also introduced the Wild Areas, and while it wasn't exactly the open world people were asking for it was a definite step up and definitely made catching pokemon more fun.

I also find Galar as a region less forgettable than Kalos, and definitely a step up in terms of character design - it's hit and miss, definitely, but the hits are pretty damn good. The 'plot' - both main and post-game - is utterly stupid though, like they weren't even trying. That said, I've spent a fair chunk of my life in the UK, and part of my enjoyment of Galar definitely came from seeing Pokemon's take on it, considering I'd definitely call it better than what they did to France. And sure, I find Leon annoying, but I also wouldn't really have trouble believing that someone like him is a star athlete. In contrast, I don't buy literally anything about Diantha.

This isn't really a defence of S/Sh, at the end of the day I don't exactly rate them highly, but honestly even without DLC I still enjoyed them more than XY, and as someone who's been in and out of competitive pokemon since gen 3 I also have to credit them with making the scene so much more accessible through various quality-of-life improvements, which makes me a bit more forgiving than I should be.

Edgedancer said:

Yeah, that's a fair take. Sun and Moon to me are kind of the poster child for "Gamefreak still has ideas, they just can't keep up with their strict development cycle now that the games have grown more technically demanding."

The Ultra games do step up the difficulty somewhat by giving most of your named enemies EV trained pokemon and in some cases better/larger teams. They still aren't especially difficulty, but then I never really associated the Pokemon franchise with difficulty. (Well, beyond having to bite out your teeth on Brock, depending on your starter, but that kind of difficulty falls away pretty quickly as soon as you get some actual team variety.) USUM also add some more story to Necrozma that ties in with Z crystals/power that's technically neat, but grafted very clumsily onto the original in a way that creates a frankenstein of a narrative, which is a shame given that Sun and Moon arguably have some of the better pokemon stories... assuming you have enough tolerance for the cutscene railroads to not be annoyed by it on principle.

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Well, good on USUM for having tweaked things a bit better, then. But yeah, Alola was pretty symptomatic of 'we want to change a lot of things and haven't actually given ourselves the means to', which pretty much was what we saw again in the build-up to gen 8. And it's not so much about Pokemon being difficult games - they've never really been so - so much as allowing you to modulate the challenge they pose you. Take B2W2 for example - at the end of the day, if you grind in-between every badge and keep your pokemon above the level curve, of course it'll be easy. But if you forego grinding, have a poorly balanced team and stay under the level curve, you're going to have a harder time, and in that way you as a player can have control over how much challenge you want to be facing even without adding arbitrary rules like nuzlockes. And that's not even counting after you've unlocked Challenge Mode, or the stuff in the post-game.

It's like BDSP. I know the internet has a thing for Cynthia memes, but the original DP Elite Four were a joke. The first time I finished the games, I was fifteen levels under the level curve on a blind run and I still won first try, with Cynthia being the only one that caused me any problems. BDSP's E4 got talked about quite a lot for having actual coherent sets, items and strategies but at the end of the day all they did was give you the option of having a more challenging run. If you still want to beat them easily, do some grinding and you'll be fine, but if you turn up like I did in my first DP run you're probably in for a surprise.

But yeah, cutscene railroads in Gen 7 were arguably the main story's biggest problem. So, so very many of them...

For me Sw/Sh lost me because of the plot. I couldn't even finish the game, it was just that bad. To the point that I didn't even bother with wasting money on the DLC. In regards to X/Y's "difficulty" level. 110% totally agree. The change to trainers suddenly only having three mon except for the champion, and even the freaking Team Leader only having three mon made me want to book a flight to Japan just to yell at the development team. I honestly longed for Blue to ambush me and just go "Sup bitch, we fightin' now. Oh, half your team's already fainted? Tough shit." No healing, no kindness, just... a proper rival that pushed you.

Negation said:

I kinda want a Magikarp because our mentor has a Gyarados so it'd be easier to learn proper training & care.

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Half of our mentor's Pokémon fit the "Dragon Egg but not Dragon Type" idea I had before, which I feel is a big plus for that theme. It lets us start under her wing, build up the team a little before going our own path.

Bloodalchemy said:

I like the idea but the wording slightly scares me. Feels like something from a villains backstory.

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I literally put a Chuuni warning. Not my fault everyone wanted to use it.

TempestK said:

And then we come to Galar and just... why.

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Galar is what happens when every person that looked at an anime/game and said "I wish the adults were actually responsible and didn't pass the buck off to a 10 year old" gets their wish granted by a monkey paw.

"Dynamax Pokemon are rampaging! Don't worry though, I'm the Champion and can actually do my job. You just go about your gym challenge."

And then suddenly Eternatus. With no real explanation or buildup.

That said, the Pokémon themselves are some of the best in terms of inspiration and lore. A shame the rest of the game doesn't hold up.

Noxlux013 said:

That said, the Pokémon themselves are some of the best in terms of inspiration and lore. A shame the rest of the game doesn't hold up.

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For the most part. I seriously want to hurt whomever thought that the frankenstein fossil mon was a good idea. That was such a massive disappointment to me. I'm a bit of a dino enthusiast so seeing those things was a major letdown.

TempestK said:

For the most part. I seriously want to hurt whomever thought that the frankenstein fossil mon was a good idea. That was such a massive disappointment to me. I'm a bit of a dino enthusiast so seeing those things was a major letdown.

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Those are based on the Great Dinosaur Rush where they were taking random bones and just tossing them together to make "new" dinosaurs for bragging rights. Very cool inspiration, very important part of Palaeontology. But yes, abominations to man and Arceus they are.

Right, votes seem to have died out so I'll just leave it to simmer tonight and close the vote tomorrow at... let's call it 12 hours from now, so 12:00 BST.

And that's time ! Aspiration and Plan Light'em Up win !

Busy week ahead, so I might not be entirely timely with the update, but it shouldn't be too long a delay !

Bugger, missed the vote, oh well I suppose that next time I'll get my chance. I'm kinda disappointed we got a mareep as our starter, nothing against the mareep line but there are a few mons I'd prefer to start out with.

Now for pokemon I'd like to catch there are the underdogs, burmy and wurmple are both that I have a soft spot for and think they could put in some good work with a bit of help.

Sindri the loyal said:

Now for pokemon I'd like to catch there are the underdogs, burmy and wurmple are both that I have a soft spot for and think they could put in some good work with a bit of help.

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Before we really get started on thinking on which mon we want, we still need to find out what exactly the mechanics, such as they are, are behind themes. And yeah while Mareep wouldn't have been my first choice it's far from my least favorite. If I'd managed to get in on that vote I would have been pushing for Meowth tbh.

TempestK said:

Before we really get started on thinking on which mon we want, we still need to find out what exactly the mechanics, such as they are, are behind themes. And yeah while Mareep wouldn't have been my first choice it's far from my least favorite. If I'd managed to get in on that vote I would have been pushing for Meowth tbh.

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True that, mechanics are still largely unknown to us but the inner pokemon hoarder within me is telling me to get a Mon rather soon. Mainly because I have no patience and I want a full team already.

And personally depending on how rare they are, I'd would have wanted either a budew as our starter or a joltik. In fact, @ReverendSwing, how rare or common are those two if I may ask?