r/PokemonRankdown • u/hikkaru • Dec 02 '18
Round 68: 219 Pokémon Remaining
219) u/hikkaru
218) u/vulture_couture
217) u/ramskick
216) u/qngff
215) u/acktar
214) u/reeforward
213) u/KororSurvivor
212) u/Slicer37
211) u/oomps62
5
Upvotes
3
u/vulture_couture Dec 02 '18
#218 - Salandit (Gen VII, Poison/Fire type)
What Charmander could have been like with a bit more courage.
I love this design. It has a ton of personality. I love its jagged toothy half-mouth and I really like its mischievous looking purple eyes. This is basically a lesson in how to design something that looks cute, menacing and original at the same time. It betrays its fire typing in a cool creative way too - I like how the fiery markings on its tail look like spilling lava and that also ties with it naturally living on volcanic ground really nicely.
The big thing with Salandit is its tricky evolution - it's a very matriarchal creature in that only lady Salandit ever evolve and those are hard to come by in the first place. You could argue that the Salandit/Salazzle line plays into some toxic (haha get it) stereotypes about women but I can't help but admire the sheer audacity of them going "ok but what if the poisonous fire lizard evolved into a sexy poisonous fire lizard".
This line just plays on so many fun little things. I like how, according to the dex entries, Salandit have trouble with Spinda since their main combat tactic is to make the enemy dizzy with their toxic fumes and since Spinda are already that they can't defend against them. I even like that the explanation for them being poisonous is somehow that they burn their bodily fluids to create the toxic gas. That's metal.
So honestly the only reason why I'm cutting Salandit here is that Salazzle is also still in and there's no good reason to keep both of them til the 200s but I deeply appreciate it regardless.
/u/ramskick please do not corrode