Wild Cards

At this point, I don't think we really need it but it may help in future generations. I think we just about have the finalized list at this point.

 

Heliolisk for ground. It's based on a frilly collar lizard (which live in warmer climates such as desert), get sand abilities, literally lived in the ground on the middle on an eternal sandstorm.

But of course, people will just explain it away like cacturne when it has the exact same arguments as stoutland.

 

No lol the only reason Stoutland is any better than those (which is barely saying anything because Stoutland sucks) is because of the whole "StoutLAND; based on a terrier which comes from Terra meaning Earth" thing. Sand is rock.

I think Stoutland should be removed, but I don't want to replace it with something else that has terrible arguments for it. What does Ground really need anyway? It seems like a pretty solid type to me already. It's also paired with everything except Fighting, Fairy, and I'll give you Bug since Wormadam and Nincada suck. Like Monbrey said, you probably won't be using much over Tyranitar anyway.

 

Not really? I mean Tyranitar is the best Sand Streamer but Hippo isn't a bad one either. It does its job. Not to mention Tyranitar doesn't really add anything to the table, except yet another quadweakness to fighting.
Rock and ground are pretty intertwined both thematically and mechanically. So argumenting that "Sandstorm is a rock move" doesn't address the fact that it benefits ground types a lot. 31 out the 42 Pokemon with Sand abilities are ground types (that's 73.8%) as opposed to the 9 Pokemon that are Rock types (of which 5 are ground types).
Out of the 29 Pokemon that learn Sandstorm by level up, 21 are ground types. Only 9 are Rock types.
Out of the 166 Pokemon that learn it by TM, 55 are ground, and an even 55 are rock types (considering legendaries and that's only because this last gen we got 5 rock mons and only 2 ground mons and not counting Pokemon that evolved from a ground type like Ninjask or Tyranitar, or evolve into a ground type like Bunnelby ).
The only Pokemon that learns Sandstorm as an SM is a Ground Pokemon.

Smeargle was not considered in any of this calculations and I might have missed something by one or two since I compiled it manually but I think I get my point across, even when you consider the fact that there are tecnically more ground types than rock types (considering Mega Evolutions, Primal Forms, etc.), it's easy to see Sandstorm is more closely tied to Ground types than Rock Types.

Not to mention sand in itself, is closer to ground, appearing in the name of 2 ground moves as opposed to rock 1 (which is sandstorm) and the item that boosts ground types move is Soft Sand.

In real life, soil (the ground in which plants grow and micro organisms live) is a mixture of clay, sand and organic matter present on the surface of the Earth and serving as substrate for plant growth and micro-organisms development. And considering that more of the Earth is seas and oceans, we have more sand on the surface, that hard ground and rocks so it can argued that sand is closer to the concept of ground on real life as well.

Also Gamefreak doesn't make nearly as much sense as it'd need to make for you to use "Sandstorm is a rock type move" as an ironclad excuse.

 

HP makes some really good points. Definitely swayed me from on the fence to supporting Cacturne in both Rock and Ground. Tyranitar offers Ground very little. The only real use since sand is 5 turns from abilities is as an ice neutrality but considering a lot of Ice types get Fighting moves, Thick Fat Mamoswine or Gastrodon or probably a few others are much better options anyway. Cacturne fits thematically definitely and with both Grass resist and Water immunity I think it'd help both Gyms enormously and give Cacturne some love too.

 

As a former Ground leader, this type really struggles with fast Water-types mostly. It needs speed (barring Garchomp [and even that's not as fast as common threats like Starmie and Greninja] and Sand Rush), which none of the wildcards can really give, so that leaves the Water-type handling angle.

I'm in favor of both Cacturne and Cradily as far as balance go. When I was first leader, both of these were allowed before I think Pidge was no longer head ref (and maybe even after that. I can't remember who finally said they weren't allowed anymore--may have even been dropping WCs completely).

Both live or are found in deserts, and honestly, the whole sand=rock and not ground argument is kinda silly, since it's all really just earth materials anyway. Stoutland has a weaker connection to Ground in my opinion, than Cacturne and Cradily. Granted it's name comes from terra and land, but it doesn't live there. To me, the sandstorm abilities are interchangeable with both Ground and Rock, since the two types do go together, as LC pointed out. They share a majority of the same habitats and movepools.

Cacturne has access to Water Absorb and Cradily to Storm Drain--neither of these make them super broken in a Ground gym. (Although Gastrodon also gets access to Storm Drain, to be fair.) They cover the water weakness but are still weak to ice--which many of the other common Ground gym mons are (and along the same thinking as Salamence in Fire). They're also slow, which fits the majority of gym mons too.

I'm not really in favor of Heliolisk for Ground.

Tyranitar is nice for restarting sandstorm (especially in this 5 turn weather era), but Hippowdon does it nicely too. When I had access to Cacturne and Cradily, I used them both over Tyranitar.

 

In the end, I don't personally see Cacturne at all, but that's just my opinion. I wouldn't mind just letting it into a Ground Gym because of all the Sand reasons (at least it's something) and the fact that it helps with Water and resists Grass.

Cradily, though, is a massive stretch to me (even compared to Cacturne), like I don't see any Ground qualities in it whatsoever. It lives underwater in the ocean depths. Having its fossil be found in the desert in ORAS makes it no more of a Ground type than having its fossil be found in Twist Mountain in BW makes it an Ice type. It gets some Ground moves, but they're really just the common ones that almost all heavy-weight Pokemon get. If Cradily were a viable Ground WC, then I feel like every other Rock-type would be too.

 

Yeah, I'm really not seeing the argument for Heliolisk in Ground. I know it gets Sand Veil, but it also gets Dry Skin and Solar Power, which are Rain/Sun abilities. Gets very few Ground moves.

Cacturne I can see an argument for, though I'm not sure that means it automatically belongs in both Rock and Ground. I see it more closely linked to Ground than to Rock if I consider moves like Ingrain to link it to Ground, however like Heliolisk it actually learns very few Ground moves, which is one of our easily defined criteria. I do think it's a good choice from a balance point of view.

Cradily is a pain - we've had arguments for it to be in Water and in Ground and they both contradict each other entirely.
Cradily doesn't live in the desert - most of its dex entries and Bulbapedia page talk about it roaming the ocean floor. Sure, you can find Lileep's fossil in the desert, but we're talking about a prehistoric Pokemon here, it stands to reason that the desert could be a dried up ocean/sea. I have no idea what criteria it was originally allowed in Ground for, because I'm not seeing anyway.

"I was allowed when Pidge was head ref" also applies to Dragonite in Water and Blaziken in Flying so that argument definitely doesn't work

 

I mostly suggested Heliolisk to make a point on how Stoutland is a stupid idea. Except Heliolisk would actually be useful.
It's pretty much the same explanation as Stoutland.

 

I've never disputed that Stoutland is dumb idea. I'll officially remove it then

Im in favour of replacing it with Cacturne, as I believe thats the best replacement from a very weak set of options.

 

@Monbrey;

Is Toxicroak too OP for water?

 

I don't think Water needs any more WCs, especially another Poison type. It's a good type as it is, and we gave it Dragalge. Toxicroak is just more Grass support that it doesn't overly need compared to other types with more destructive weaknesses. Either way, I think the case for Toxicroak isn't overly strong other than being a frog.

I think it's safe to lock down certain parts of the list from suggestions and leave open whatever still needs to be discussed. I think it's just a matter of finding that last Ground WC at this point, and even there I'm pretty sure we've decided on replacing Stoutland with Cacturne and leaving it at that.

 

Alright, looks like this is resolved, there really isn't much more discussion happening anymore.

Cacturne has replaced Stoutland in Ground.
A decision was made to remove Gliscor from Bug - it had a weak case and the scorpion-like tail isn't really enough to keep it there.

Locking this thread, will post announcement separately.