Highlights
- Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's upcoming DLC, The Teal Mask, has been leaked, revealing new critters to catch and locations to explore in Kitakami.
- One notable missing Pokemon in the game is Claydol, the only Ground/Psychic type in the franchise, which would have had an advantage against several new creatures.
- The absence of unique type combinations like Claydol's highlights the need for future Pokemon games to include Pokemon with unique typing or introduce new ones to avoid leaving gaps in the regional Pokedex.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's The Teal Mask DLC is coming out in a handful of days, and it will likely include many new things for players to do while they wait for the final expansion in the form of The Indigo Disk. Still, the first DLC was recently leaked in terms of new critters that players will be able to catch as well as all the various locations in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Kitakami that will become available to explore. With all the new Pokemon now revealed, there's a specific creature from past games that would be perfect to deal with many of them, but it's unfortunately not available in Gen 9 games (and won't be even as of The Indigo Disk, according to current data).
Ever since Pokemon games cut the regional Pokedex down to a few hundred pocket monsters to reduce the impact of working on all 3D models and their respective animations, some critters have been left out occasionally - with some still being unavailable on the Switch. This was a huge controversy when the news hit, but Pokemon Sword and Shield did add more returning monsters with their expansions, and so will Gen 9 games. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Home compatibility even let players transfer some special forms from Pokemon Legends: Arceus as well as other creatures, but one special Gen 3 species is missing from Paldea.
How Claydol Would Have Allowed Pokemon Players to Steamroll Through The Teal Mask
While there are several unused Pokemon type combinations that the series should address at some point in the future, there are also many species that are the sole representation of a given type combo. This is a double-edged sword, as those Pokemon will be more sought-after and feel more unique when they're available, but they will leave their niche empty whenever they are cut from the regional Pokedex.
One such critter is Claydol, who is the only Ground/Psychic Pokemon in the entire franchise, aside from its pre-evolution, Baltoy. While Claydol is often not considered among the best Pokemon around, its unique typing would have made it particularly good in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's The Teal Mask. As it stands, datamines revealed that the so-called Loyal Three - Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti - will all share the Poison type, and their secondary types will be Fighting, Psychic, and Fairy, respectively. All three would be weak to both Ground and Psychic due to their Poison type, with Okidogi even being 4x weak to Psychic.
On top of that, the newly leaked Bloodmoon Ursaluna for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is seemingly going to be Ground and Steel, which would make it weak to Ground as well, thus making Claydol alone a great mon to use in battle with all these four creatures. The remaining ones would still all receive at least neutral damage from STAB moves from Claydol, as both Poltchageist and Sinistcha are Grass/Ghost, whereas Dipplin is Grass/Dragon, and Ogerpon's typing remains a mystery. However, both Poltchageist and Sinistcha would deal x2 damage to Claydol with Grass or Ghost moves, and Dipplin would as well with its Grass type.
Ogerpon's typing in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet seems to be Grass for the story-mode form (the one with the actual teal mask), but it is also poised to have a Water and Fire form, as well as another one that could be Normal, Steel, or something else. All of them would at least take x1 damage from Claydol, making it a very suitable Pokemon for any team - although this is all speculation, considering neither Baltoy nor Claydol will be in Gen 9 games, it seems. Overall, future titles should try and include Pokemon that have unique type combos, or at least add new ones that use them, so that a situation like the one in The Teal Mask won't happen again.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now for the Nintendo Switch.
