Junk Rare / Pokémon

Junk Rare examples in the Pokémon series.

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Series-Wide

• Shiny Pokémon, introduced in Gen II, are essentially just Palette Swapped versions of the base species with a very low chance of appearing and offer nothing extra when it comes to battle. It doesn't stop them from being highly prized among collectors for their rarity, if nothing else.
• Phione is technically a Mythical Pokémon, with the only way of obtaining it being through an arcane method, which requires getting a Manaphy (another mythical Pokémon that could only be obtained legitimately through the Pokémon Ranger game back in Gen IV and in events in later Gens), and breeding it with a Ditto (when normally you can't breed legendary/mythical Pokémon at all, even those with genders). If you actually go through the trouble of getting a Manaphy and breed it with a Ditto, your reward is a Phione... a drastically weaker Pokémon with a more limited movepool (including losing Tail Glow, the move that makes Manaphy so good), and despite being bred from Manaphy, Phione does not evolve into it nor anything else. With all its stats being a painfully mediocre 80, lacking Tail Glow or anything else to give it real distinguished utility, Phione is a Master of None that can't do anything well yet is painfully rare across the series.
• Dunsparce first appears as a very rare encounter in Gen II and is terrible in every way, being a plain Normal-type with poor stats across the board. It remains both junky and rare in every other appearance until Gen IX where it gains an evolution, Dudunsparce, which has far more usable stats. However, the spirit of it is still preserved with a rare form of Dudunsparce... that is just Dudunsparce with an additional segment ("Three Segment" form) and can only be acquired via evolving a Dunsparce with a measly 1% chance (Dudunsparce can be found in the wild but not in "Three Segment" form).
• Most baby Pokémon thorughout the series. Many of them require you to capture and breed their evolved form(s), sometimes after obtaining a rare item, and then carry an egg around in one of your party slots until it hatches, for a Pokémon that is ultimately weaker than the one you started with due to being unevolved and baby Pokémon usually having pitiful stats. Even raised up baby Pokémon are often worthless, as statistically there's no difference between, for example, a Raichu that started as a Pikachu and a Raichu that started as a baby-form Pichu. They additionally make chain breeding more tedious, as you have to evolve them before you can breed them (while they often have annoying evolution requirements, like high friendship, to boot), so players will avoid breeding the baby Pokémon at all if they have a choice (e.g. when breeding Roselia, players will not have it hold Rose Incense so that the offspring are Roselia instead of its baby form, Budew, allowing them to be bred immediately). However, some Pokémon do have moves they can only learn in their baby forms (Wobbuffet, for example, can only learn Encore as a Wynaut), so there is some occasional use for them. Some appear in the wild like regular Pokémon in later games, though, and in X/Y, baby Pokémon will always have at least three max IVs, making it worth your effort to try getting a Pokémon in its baby form; however this was an unintended side effect of Game Freak making any Pokémon in the No Eggs group have three guaranteed max IVs (which was meant to make getting legendary Pokémon with good IVs easier), so baby Pokémon having this caveat was immediately removed in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, removing the only advantage of obtaining baby Pokémon.
• In some cases, Pokémon with Hidden Abilities can be this. Depending on the game you’re playing, getting a Pokémon with one can be a long, hard, and tedious task, but generally, the results are worth it since most of those abilities are more suitable for competitive battles. However, like useless shinies, it depends on the Pokémon species, as there are species that have hidden abilities that are worse than their regular ones. For example, Araquanid who, instead of an ability that boosts its Water attacks, makes it resistant to Fire, and grants it immunity to burn status, it gets one that makes it immune to a type that it's already resistant against. Other more evident examples are Audino with Klutz and Durant with Truant ^note Both can learn Entrainment and use it to pass the ability to other Pokémon, but these strategies need an elaborate setup to work since when the affected Pokémon is switched out, the effect is neutralized. As such, in battle facilities, they're pretty much unstoppable thanks to the fact that you can force the ability onto your opponent's Pokémon and switch out to another Pokémon given that opposing A.I. trainers rarely switch. . And since it's not possible to exchange a normal ability for a hidden one, the reverse is also true. If you found a Pokémon with a worthless hidden ability, it's stuck with it. This is especially painful if it happens to also be a shiny. Even the Ability Patch introduced in Sword and Shield can only change a regular ability to a hidden ability.

Generation I

Pokémon Red and Blue and Yellow

• There is only one Farfetch'd and Lickitung available in the game apiece, and both must be traded for with NPCs. Farfetch'd isn't that much stronger than the Spearow you have to trade for it, lacks an evolution to make it more useful, and doesn't learn Drill Peck either unlike the Fearow line. It exists basically to show off the trading mechanic in-game and to give you a user for the Cut HM. Lickitung is just an overall painfully mediocre Pokémon that is outclassed by most other Normal types. They can, however, be found in the wild in Yellow, making them a bit less "rare" but still "junk".
• Tangela can only be caught in one out-of-the-way place you'll never have a reason to go to (that small grass patch south of Pallet Town that can only be reached by Surf), has only a 10% rate of encounter there, mediocre stats, and a pathetic move set. The most noteworthy thing about it was that it was the only pure Grass-type in this generation... which doesn't help it when it comes to weaknesses, and if you want a Grass type that resists Ground moves, Exeggutor is a superior option.
• If you manage to grind the slot machines at the Game Corner (or just buy a crap-ton of coins) to completely fill your Coin Case, you can buy Porygon... which has poor stats, especially Speed. Blue players at least don't have to work so hard for it as it costs fewer coins, but it still stings.
• All three of the "Eeveelutions" can only be obtained once in a single playthrough without trading, and even then, you'll have to choose. However, while Jolteon and Vaporeon are considered well worth that rarity, Flareon's status as runt of the litter started early, owing to the fact that while the others focus on Speed and HP, Flareon focuses on Attack. While this does let Flareon hit quite hard with Normal-type moves, the fact that Attack and Special are its only good stats give it the unfortunate combo of being slow and frail. Flareon is further crippled by its bad movepool and TM options compared to the other two — while Vaporeon can get by with the Bubblebeam TM until it picks up Surf, and Jolteon only needs the Thunderbolt TM to be effective, Flareon is stuck with the pitifully weak Ember as its only STAB move until it reaches level 44 and gets Fire Spin. It needs to reach level 54 to get Flamethrower, and Fire Blast is only available as a TM from beating Blaine, at which point the game's almost over anyway.
• Scyther and Pinsir are supposed to be the strongest Bug-type Pokémon in this generation, and are only found in the Safari Zone (where they're rare and hard to catch), or bought at the Game Corner for a ton of coins (and they're version exclusives, to boot). Despite both having high Attack (and in Scyther's case, high Speed), their movepools mostly consist only of Normal-type moves; and of the few, laughably weak Bug-type moves that exist, not a single one is in their learnset, making them little better than the early-game Bug-types most players abandon by then.
• Aerodactyl cannot be found anywhere in the wild, and each file has only one you can get, by getting the Old Amber from the Pewter Museum and then taking it to the Cinnabar Lab. Despite being tied for the second-fastest Pokémon in the game and having a high Attack stat, it suffers due to its movepool. Most of its physical moves are Normal, it lacks reliable Flying moves outside of the weak Wing Attack, and knows no Rock moves at all. It also has a bad Special stat, further limiting its moveset and making it easier to knock out.
• Ditto can only be found in a few routes as a rare encounter yet it's entirely useless in battle, and as there's no breeding in Gen I, it doesn't even have its highly valuable breeding niche it would have in future Gens.
• Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee can't be found anywhere in the wild, and you can only get one of either in the game as a prize from the Fighting Dojo Master, but being frail Fighting types with mediocre Speed and atrocious Special, they'll hardly be useful. Hitmonchan is especially bad, being slower with less Attack than Hitmonlee for marginally more physical durability (but not to any helpful degree), and swapping out the actually decent Jump Kick moves for elemental punches that run off of its base 35 Special.
• Magmar can only be found in the Pokémon Mansion on specific floors as a rare encounter (either 4% or 10% depending on the floor), and only in Blue. Statwise, it is thoroughly mediocre, with no stat reaching 100 and its Special being an average 85, while being very frail. It can learn Psychic and Submission for some unique coverage, but other Fire types just outclass it by hitting harder and faster, so the coverage doesn't help much.
• Cubone can only be found as a rare encounter in the Pokémon Tower, and its evolution Marowak can only be found as a rare encounter in Victory Road (and in the postgame Cerulean Cave), as well as in the Safari Zone in Yellow. However, Marowak's stats are awful for a fully evolved Pokémon; it's very slow, has low HP undermining its high Defense, mediocre Attack, and very poor Special that prevents it from doing much with its surprisingly good Special movepool, while also causing it to die very quickly to any Special moves. Every other Ground type is better in some way by comparison.

Generation II

Pokémon Gold and Silver and Crystal

• There are six Gen II Pokémon that "swarm", meaning they normally have an encounter rate of 1%, unless they randomly become more common for about an hour once a week, and the only way you'll notice is if you have a phone number of a certain trainer who will call you when they start "swarming". These Pokémon are Dunsparce, Yanma, Snubbull, Marill, Qwilfish, and Remoraid. Unfortunately, despite their rarity, they are awful to mediocre at best, and you have plenty of other better options that are much easier to get.
• Ledyba can only be found on a few routes in the morning, and is a Silver version exclusive. Even as Ledian, its stats are pretty bad, save for its Special Defense, but without a good HP stat and defensive typing to back it up, that may as well be poor too.
• Delibird can only be found as an uncommon encounter in the lower floors of Ice Path. However, it's a single-stage Pokémon with awful stats that are more befitting a first-stage Pokémon, and the only move it learns naturally is the nigh-useless Present. It can learn TMs, but its movepool is still very limited and it'll get nothing that makes it remotely usable.
• Sneasel has a neat design and a cool Dark/Ice typing, but it can only be found in the grass outside Mt. Silver, which you won't be able to access until you've beaten the Elite Four and have gotten all the Kanto badges (in Crystal, it can at least be found in Ice Path, though it's still a rare encounter). However, Sneasel is perhaps the biggest victim of the type-based physical/special categorization; both of its types are special-based, yet Sneasel has an absolutely abysmal base 35 Special Attack. So despite its above-average Attack and very high Speed that should let it function as a fast Glass Cannon, its offensive output with its STAB is incredibly weak, and it can't really do anything competently at all, leaving it on par or even worse than intentionally-bad joke Pokémon like Delibird and the "swarmers".
• Murkrow can only be found in a few Kanto routes at night, making it unobtainable without trading before beating the Elite Four. Despite having no evolutions, its stats are on par with a mid-evolution Pokémon, and while it stats indicate it's supposed to be a mixed Glass Cannon, the strongest STAB moves it learns are the mediocre Fly with 70 power and Faint Attack with 60 power, while having no other moves to boost its offense farther, giving it poor offensive potential.
• Slugma. It is a slow and frail Fire-type Pokémon that can only be found in the easily-avoided patch of grass on Kanto's Cycling Road, and its evolution, Magcargo, has poor stats outside its Defense, which is undermined anyway by its Fire/Rock typing giving it crippling 4X weaknesses to Water and Ground.
• Aipom can only be found by headbutting certain trees, but it's a plain Normal-type that doesn't evolve and has stats on par with a weaker mid-evolution Pokémon.
• Bellossom and Sunflora have fairly common pre-evolutions (Oddish/Gloom and Sunkern), but can only be evolved into those forms with a Sun Stone. How do you get a Sun Stone? Get first place at the Bug-Catching Contest—an unholy hybrid of Luck-Based Mission and Guide Dang It!, which can only be entered three times per week (though Save Scumming can help you here). Once you've finally gotten your Sun Stone, you'll find that they're both incredibly mediocre Grass-types with no Speed, in a generation where Grass is probably at its worst. Bellossom is the better of the two by some distance, since it at least has alright stats and can be picked up relatively early if you know how to cheese the contest. Meanwhile, Sunflora has a pathetically middling 425 BST, spreads those stats in a way that suggests it to be a special attacker despite having no coverage whatsoever, and is one of the only Grass-types in the game that can't learn Sleep Powder or Stun Spore. Future generations would make the Sun Stone much easier to obtain.
• In this Gen, shiny Pokémon carry a specific set of DVs, where they'll always have a 10 DV in their Defense, Speed, and Special stats, and will have a HP DV of either 0 or 8, with only their Attack DV being able to go up to the max of 15. This above-average spread of DVs and natures not being a thing yet means any shinies you get will not be awful, so they'll be more than serviceable for single-player usage. However, if you want to use them for competitive PVP, shinies are outright unviable no matter what, as they'll be substantially weaker than Pokémon with a perfect DV spread, and even without using perfect DV Pokémon, it's much much easier to get Pokémon with a better DV spread than what a shiny can ever have.

Generation III

Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and Emerald

• Skitty is a plain Normal-type only available on Route 116 with a normal 2% encounter rate (though it goes as high as 50% during rare "swarms"). It has sub-par stats across the board, even when evolved into Delcatty.
• Chimecho is found only in the highest part of Mt. Pyre with a measly 2% encounter rate. It has mediocre stats, with its highest one being a base 95 Special Attack, and it's horribly outclassed by other Psychic-types available much earlier in the game, like Alakazam, Gardevoir, and even Grumpig.
• Nosepass. You just have to get lucky in finding one by smashing rocks in Granite Cave, only to discover that its Attack is rather poor, more than likely making you think, "THIS is the Pokémon I had difficulty with in the Rustboro gym"?
• The Starf Berry in Emerald is one of the rarest items in the entire game: the only way to get one is by defeating all of the Battle Frontier bosses TWICE to get the seven Gold Frontier Symbols. The berry's description states that it was abandoned at the world's edge due to its extreme power. Unfortunately, in actual play, it's a fairly Awesome, but Impractical item: all it does is sharply raise a random stat when the holder's HP is below 1/4th. Compared to the more consistent Liechi, Petaya, and Salac Berries, the Starf Berry is a massive gamble that doesn't have good odds of paying off.

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen

• Flareon returns from Gen I and gets hit even worse this time around. While its movepool isn't quite as bad this time, with the Flamethrower TM being available in the Rocket Game Corner, they hacked 15 points off its Special Attack in the split, meaning its offense with Fire-type moves went from rather good (in fact, Flareon's Fire Blast was only outclassed by that of Moltres) to utterly unimpressive.

Generation IV

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Platinum

• Carnivine is only available in the Great Marsh, so it's tougher to catch than other Pokémon, and it isn't guaranteed to show up, with it being one of the Pokémon that has a chance of appearing in the different zones day by day. Should you manage to catch one, you'll soon discover that it's a total Master of None: it's very slow, it has mediocre defensive stats, its attacking stats are decent at best, it has a poor level-up movepool, and to add insult to injury, it's in the Slow experience group, so it levels up slower than other Pokémon. It is thoroughly outclassed by the Roserade line as a Grass-type, both in terms of power and availability.
• Spinda can only be acquired a single late-game route and only then during rare "swarms". It is a single-stage Normal-type with subpar stats across the board.
• Regigigas is a Legendary Pokémon and can only be battled after obtaining the three Legendary giants (themselves difficult legendary encounters). After adding them to the party, Regigigas can be confronted and, with some luck and effort, caught. However, you will soon realize you just obtained quite possibly the worst Legendary Pokémon ever, thanks to its Slow Start ability that cripples it for the first five turns of the battle, rendering Regigigas mostly useless both in-game and competitively.

Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver

• Shuckle in the originals was junky, but in addition to the one given to you for free, could be caught via rock smashing in several other locations. Here, it's still junky, but is even more rare. Beyond the one given to you, it can only be acquired in the new Safari Zone under certain conditions and via Rock Smashing in two cities. Not routes, but cities, one of which (Vermillion City) is in Kanto well past when Rock Smash has lost viability.

Generation V

Pokémon Black 2 and White 2

• Cryogonal can only be found in Twist Mountain during the Winter. In the first B/W, it could still be found at a 1% chance in the other seasons while increasing to 5% in the winter, meaning that here, depending on when you're playing, you may not be able to encounter one at all. It also isn't very good, being a single-stage Pokémon with excellent Speed and Special Defense, but being an Ice-type, a host of common, crippling weaknesses. If you happen to be playing during any of the other seasons, it's probably better just to trade one in to complete your Pokédex.

Generation VI

Pokémon X and Y

• Goodra has a reputation as one of the worst Dragon-types in the series (and certainly the worst pseudo-legendary) for good reason and it's quite challenging to acquire one. It's first stage, Goomy, is only available at a 10% encounter rate on a single route and must be babied until it evolves into Sliggoo at level 40, one of the highest levels a second-stage evolution that still has a third-stage requires in the series. Sliggoo then has to be babied until level 50, and even then, it will only evolve if it is raining, which is a total Luck-Based Mission. The end result is a good-not-great defensively oriented Dragon-type in a generation stacked with the new anti-Dragon Fairy-types.

Generation VII

Pokémon Sun and Moon

• Crabominable is a unique Fighting/Ice-type with good HP and excellent Attack, which are immediately undone by its poor defenses, low Speed, and typing with numerous weaknesses. Worse, it can only be evolved from the common Crabrawler when leveled-up at Mount Lanakila, the final area of the base game.
• Drampa is a unique Normal/Dragon-type that borders on being an Oxymoronic Being with its stat distribution - slow Special Attacker whose typing lends far better to a physical moveset. It's also a Moon exclusive available only in a single area at a 10% encounter rate. Sun players, meanwhile, get access to the much better Fire/Dragon-type Turtonator instead.

Generation VIII

Pokémon Sword and Shield plus DLC

• Sinistea and Polteageist that possess authentic antiques appear much less often than those possessing forgeries, but are no stronger because of it. Even the cosmetic difference is hard to spot, and the Chipped Teapot needed for an authentic Sinistea to evolve is much harder to get than the forgeries’ Cracked Teapot, so you may be better off not spending the time bothering to track down an authentic one.
• Getting Pokémon with hidden abilities in Max Raid Battles, where you have to find an active den in the wild area that has the Pokémon that you want, unite a group of trainers online (which has its problems), or failing that, mostly useless NPC trainers, and THEN fight a long and difficult boss battle to have ONE chance to capture a Pokémon with a low catch rate. All for the slim chance that said Pokémon has the ability and will be "junk" otherwise.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

• Spinda returns from the originals and is even more rare now while being just as "junky". While many Pokémon that used to be exclusive to the "swarm" mechanic in the originals are now available in the Grand Underground, Spinda is not one of them. To makes things worse, thanks to an incompatibility related to how the games render Spinda's unique spot patterns, it cannot be transferred from Pokémon HOME to BDSP or vice-versa, which means that not even obtaining Spinda from a previous generation, Pokémon GO (from which you also can't transfer Spinda to HOME), or the GTS can be used to fill its Pokédex entry. Therefore, the only way to obtain Spinda in BDSP (besides trading) is to wait for it to be the swarming Pokémon of the day. The odds of it being Spinda are 1/28, so it can take weeks for it to appear. All of this for a Pokémon with an awful spread of 60 points on every base stat.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

• Cherubi, a weak pure Grass-type outclassed by dozens of others in the game, is one of the rarest Pokémon in the game. It is only available via "shaking trees" in just three areas of the game, not all trees in those areas will shake when you arrive, and there are several other species acquired in the same method which are many times more likely to appear in those that do instead. To anyone looking to complete the Pokédex and encounter Arceus, this little cherry will be the bane of their existence. If you're looking to go a step further and 100% complete the Pokédex, you'll need to encounter 10 of them. Good luck!

Generation IX

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

• In the base game, Slakoth is notoriously difficult to find, as it only spawns in trees, making them hard to spot and impossible to bring down to fight until you upgrade Koraidon/Miraidon at least once. Meanwhile, its evolution Vigoroth is a downright common spawn, and even Slaking can be found around the world more frequently, so it’s much easier just to breed one of its relatives or, if you have the DLC, wait until you reach Blueberry Academy than to spend time searching for one in Paldea.

Spin-Off Games

Pokémon GO:

• Eggs can cause a lot of headaches, since a lot of effort (and potentially money as well) goes into hatching one, only to find out it was something unwanted.
  • Eevee used to be part of the 10km egg group, the rarest type of egg to find at Pokéstops and the longest amount of distance to hatch. All of the other Pokémon in that category are pretty rare in the wild, but Eevee is a reasonably common Pokémon in most places, and while it's liked it's certainly not so rare as to justify such a placement. The only upside is that egg-hatched Pokémon start out with higher CP than those caught in the wild and hatching comes with a decent amount of candy and stardust, usually enough to evolve Eevee on the spot, so it's not a total waste. Eevee has since been downgraded to the more common 5km egg group.
  • Klink has taken Eevee's place as the hated Junk Rare of the 10km egg group. It isn't known for being a particularly rare or sought-after Pokémon, and its final evolution Klinklang is quite bad, but if you're unlucky enough it'll end up being your most common 10km hatch.
  • In February 2021, the 12km Strange Egg eggpool was updated to add Corphish, Skorupi, and Qwilfish, three Pokémon not seen as particularly desirable for the game's meta in any form (especially compared to the majority of the rest of the Strange eggpool) nor particularly hard finds in their respective preferred weather conditions, leaving the playerbase baffled as to why Niantic chose to stick them in the game's most onerous eggs to gain and hatch. And as of July 2022, Scorupi still remains, which for some reason appears as frequently from eggs as the Ensemble Dark Horse Absol and the impossible-to-find-elsewhere Salandit.
• Unown is one of the least likely, if not the least likely Pokémon to spawn outside of specific events. But just like in the main series, its stats and moves are terrible. Collecting the various forms gives you a medal, but like most medals it doesn't grant anything to the player.
• As with the main games, a shiny version of a weaker Pokémon falls under this. Just like in other games in the franchise, there's only a roughly one-in-8,000 chance of finding one (higher during certain events). However, its coloration has nothing to do with how effective it'll be. This is particularly true for anything that's an uncommon spawn - finding a shiny Luvdisc has odds on par with hitting the lottery, but about the only thing it has that other Com Mons don't is pure bragging rights.
• During the month of November 2018, after making Suicune the Research Breakthrough reward for October, came Shedinja, an overall poor fighter and defender outclassed by many other Pokémon. This choice was done as Shedinja cannot be obtained through its normal method of evolving a Nincada into Ninjask, which would create a Shedinja afterwards.
• Pokémon in costumes or with special limited-edition hats/appearances, with some exceptions, are barred from all forms of evolution whatsoever due to their associated evolutions not also having the costume. They are typically unable to amass a CP in the thousands, and even if they can with enough candies and Stardust, you're better off spending the power-ups on an un-costumed evolution of that Pokémon instead. Ninatic would begin releasing the evolved forms of costumed Pokémon as time went on, however, many costumed variants (most notably those of Pikachu) are still stuck without any ability to evolve.

Trading Card Game

Trading Card Game:

• Evolved (Stage 1 and Stage 2) Pokémon are mostly rare, and require basic Pokémon first. (You can get around using a Stage 1 with Pokémon Breeder (also Rare), but you still need the common basic Pokémon.) This was initially averted, as most basic Pokémon used to be rather weak, forcing players to evolve, but the introduction of EX Pokémon basically turned evolved Pokémon into Artifacts.
• Another example would be the super Awesome, but Impractical legends, and some rares are actually extremely weak and nigh unplayable, like early Magneton, Pidgeot, etc.
• Rarity seems to be more related to the Pokémon featured than the potential for playability. There have been instances in just about every tournament season of a player doing well with a deck using nothing above Uncommon, the second-lowest rarity, though such decks have never moved beyond the national level. There was one time a World Championship winner's deck used only 4 Rares out of 60 cards per deck. (There were at least three rarities above Rare at that time. And if you're curious, it was the Lunatone-Solrock deck.)
• The game's creators had fun with this when they introduced secret rare XY-Evolutions Imakuni?'s Doduo. Its power involves throwing the card across the room when retreating it, and the attack requires singing. And oh yeah: At the bottom is the red text, "This card cannot be used at official tournaments."
• Around the mid-late 2000s, there was a series of "Gold Star" cards, Pokémon cards that often had unique abilities or attacks and used the Pokémon's Shiny palette. The cards were extremely rare, and even if you did get multiple, you were limited to one Gold Star in a given deck. The reward for finding and using these rare cards was absolutely not worth it, with most cards being either gimmick cards that don't have serious use^note The Eeveelution cards can all inflict status or damage to enemies or even heal your active Pokémon when placed on the Bench, but with the drawback of affecting both active Pokémon, and their attacks and stats are nothing special, Comeback Mechanic cards that were plain inefficient to use^note by the time you and your opponent are getting low on Prize cards, you likely already have powerful Mons set up that aren't completely useless before that point, or straight-up Awesome, but Impractical^note Delta Species Gold Star Gyarados was this to an exaggerated degree, with its main attack requiring 4 Fire Energy and for you to discard all but one card in your deck for a chance to deal massive damage to one enemy Pokémon, meaning if that attack doesn't win you the game, you instantly lose by deck out on the next turn..

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