Azumarill · 30th Celebration (30C) #068

1 comment

1. 

   Squirchampion

   (2 weeks ago)

   In a set with 7 Water types and 19 Psychic types, printing Marill and Azumarill as Psychic is an interesting choice, especially since they don’t really feel like Psychic types.

   A few weeks ago we had a “spirited conversation” about why Poison-type Pokémon from the video games were printed as Grass types in the early years of the card game. I think we landed on this: what feels strange to newer players seemed completely normal back then. Poison and Grass overlapped a lot in dual-types, colors, and playstyle (both liked to inflict status conditions like Poison), so Poison Pokémon fit right in as Grass types, at least for the first two or three generations.

   That conversation got a little sidetracked, but I wanted to keep following how types got reshuffled over the years. For a long time, putting Poison Pokémon under Psychic never felt right to me. They finally feel as at home under Darkness as they once did under Grass. The playstyles aren’t exactly the same, but both share a theme of fighting with tricks and deception. Poison Pokémon also add some variety to Darkness, which usually doesn’t inflict status conditions. Under Psychic, they clashed with the natural Psychic types, which leaned more toward Paralysis and Confusion.

   That brings us to the short-lived Fairy type, and how its Pokémon (including several that were “retconned,” or retroactively changed, into Fairy) ended up as Psychic types. I don’t think it works, especially for Pokémon that only became Fairy in Gen 6. Take Muk as an example: Grass Muk made sense because of its shared playstyle of inflicting status conditions. Psychic Muk was probably popular because the purple card matched Muk’s own color. And Darkness Muk fits well thematically.

   Most Fairy Pokémon were pink, or at least looked good on a pink card. Marill and Azumarill were exceptions, but printing them as Fairy now and then could be seen as a one-off, like the occasional Colorless Tropius (maybe a Colorless Mantine someday?). A few odd fits like that don’t ruin a type’s overall identity.

   But when the Fairy type was dropped, I think Pokémon that weren’t originally Fairy should have gone back to their original types, and the rest should probably have gone to Colorless. Azumarill makes the point best, because it doesn’t feel like a Psychic type at all. And I’d argue the switch isn’t working for most other Fairy Pokémon either:

   Theme: Fairy Pokémon don’t really match the Psychic type’s style. I expect pushback here, since Gardevoir (a Fairy/Psychic dual-type) is the first card many players will think of, and it’s been a strong competitive card many times. But in the card game, Fairy Pokémon never developed a shared playstyle. You could move Poison Pokémon across three different types and they’d still feel like a group, because they always inflicted status conditions. Fairy Pokémon never had that. Clefairy and Togetic often shared Metronome attacks, but they never had much in common with Marill, and it’s hard to say what Mawile, Fidough, and Cutiefly have in common. Once you spread them across other types, they stop feeling like Fairies and just blend into their new type. This has happened before, but that doesn’t make it easier to accept as a change to how things were.
   Color: It’s a mix, and since color is usually a bonus rather than a deal-breaker, there isn’t much more to say.
   Concept: I think the real problem is that Fairy was never a strong type to begin with. When it debuted, most of its Pokémon were older ones retconned into it. It was nice to group Clefairy, Togepi, Marill, and Snubbull together, but nobody was really saying, “Don’t Granbull, Mr. Mime, and Mawile have a lot in common? Shouldn’t they share a type?” The retcon also never sat right with me, because by that logic some Pokémon “should” have become Fairy but didn’t, either because they already had two types (Celebi, Jirachi) or because it would have unbalanced competitive play. (Clefairy has way more in common with Chansey than with Mr. Mime, but a Fairy-type Chansey might have been a disaster for VGC.)

   Looking at all three points (theme, color, and concept), Fairy doesn’t fit Psychic very well. It would fit much better under Colorless, which was already home to many Pokémon that later became Fairy. The rest, like Gardevoir, Mawile, and Azumarill, would work fine there too, either as regular Colorless Pokémon or as occasional one-offs.

   That said, I don’t expect the Fairy type to move anytime soon. Fairy is the second group in a row that’s been placed under Psychic, which suggests the designers see Psychic as a type with “room to spare,” and Fairy is the one loose end that fits closely enough. But even knowing all that, a Psychic Azumarill still feels weird!

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