The latest Pokémon game I played was ORAS and for the first time ever, I seriously trained a Dustox.  Let me just say right now that Dusty is quite a cutie.  I especially love feeding him in Pokémon Amie and bonding with him in general.  My team roster may see powerful members come and go, but Dusty stayed with me until the end.

Image from http://www.thepokemasters.net/pokedex/index.php/pokemon/Dustox

But Dustox is by no means a strong Pokémon; in fact, this is the first time I decided to train one.  Dustox always struck me as weak, with a poor move distribution and a bad type match up.  What changed?  Why have I now bonded strongly with a Pokémon that before I didn’t take for granted?

Here’s something that many of my Pokémon friends know about me, Poison is my favorite Pokémon Type.  There are so many great and cool Pokémon that I have loved and trained throughout the years.  Just about every game I play in Pokémon has seen at least one Poison Type Pokémon on my team.

My Haunters are usually named Strawberry or Cherry.  Image from http://www.ign.com/wikis/pokemon-red-blue-yellow-version/Haunter

The Poison Type was probably at its peak in Generation 1 when 22% of all Pokémon were Poison Type.  Out of 15 types too!  That’s ridiculous!  You can find them everywhere from the Starter Bulbasaur, to the swarming Zubats in caves, to the swimming Tentacools in the oceans, all the way to the Safari Zone.  You could easily make a team of just Poison Pokémon in Red and Blue.

But the Poison Type has suffered setbacks since Generation 1 that has dropped it to the okay zone.  In Generation 2 it was no longer super effective against Bug (leaving just Grass) and the newly introduced Steel Type was immune to any poisoning.  And from Generation 2 on only a few Poison Type Pokémon have been introduced in each generation dropping the abundance to just 8% of the total Pokémon population (and now, even five generations later, over half of all Poison Pokémon were introduced in Generation 1).

I have had many Crobats, two that stand out to me are Calcite and Leofsig.  Image from http://maestropkmn.blogspot.com/2014/03/estrategia-pokemon-crobat.html

But I remained a steadfast and loyal Poison Type fan.  I just love these guys, they are so much fun and they can be quite versatile as well, especially if they have a second typing.  Gengar, Nidoking, Crobat, Tentacruel, Dragalge, Toxicroak, and of course Bulbasaur are all Pokémon that I loved and trained for more than a decade.  They are like the underdogs in the Pokémon world; they may get the short end of the stick at times but man do I love them.

Poison Type’s position as a sub-par type began to change in Generation V when it, along with many other types, were given new moves and hidden abilities.  Nidoking now had Sheer Force, many of the moths got Quiver Dance, and Toxic’s accuracy rose to 90%.

My Nidoking was called Aragorn. Image from http://pokemondb.net/pokedex/nidoking

But Poison Type finally got to shine in Generation VI.  Poison became a Type to be feared, respected, and used.  Not only did a lot of Poison Type Pokémon got a small boost in their stats, such as Dustox, but an even more important event happened that made Poison viable for both the games and the metagame.

When the Fairy Type was introduced I was beyond excited.  Not only was this a new type, but now the dynamics between type relationships would be shaken.  In the Fairy Type’s introduction video, Gamefreak showed that Fairy would be super effective against the powerful Dragon Type.  Already this was big news but what was not revealed was what was Fairy weak against? Would Poison be good against Fairy?

Thankfully, my prayers were answered and I rejoiced.  Poison was only one of two types super effective against Fairy Type and one of three that resists it.  Now, Poison Type was good against the now prevalent Fairy Type and many Pokémon benefited from that.

But more importantly, Poison cemented itself as a great defensive type.  Immune to poisoning with resistance to Fighting, Bug, Grass, Poison, and now Fairy, the Poison Type is now a good type to use when inflicting statuses on opposing Pokémon.  And with Toxic now 100% accuracy for Poison Types, they are able to excel at it.

My Bulbasaur was sometimes named Cretaceous. Image from http://pokemon.wikia.com/wiki/Bulbasaur

The Poison Type is a great example how things change for each passing generation.  Sometimes, a few Pokémon may become worse, but most of the time, every Pokémon becomes slightly better, slightly more usable, slightly more appealing.  New moves, new abilities, and maybe even a stat or type change makes this so.  So when the remakes come out, such as ORAS, Pokémon that you may have skipped the first time around now gravitate you towards them.  Dusty is one of them, he is amazing and I’m glad I caught him.  He’s is one more Pokémon I can add to my most favorite Pokémon Type ever.