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Unused Type Combinations: wishlist for Pokémon that could have them.

Johnny Boy

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As the title suggests, this is a place where you can come up with ideas for Pokémon with type combos that haven’t been used yet.

For me, these are my most wanted:

Steel/Poison: This should definitely be something that’s based on mercury, which is one of the most toxic metals. And I think a fish would be a good Pokemon to use as consumption of fish is one of the most common causes of mercury poisoning. For bonus points, said fish can be a fugu, which is a kind of puffer fish that a lot of people die from eating each year if the chef doesn’t carefully remove its spines.

Fairy/Fighting: Easy. An ogre. Granbull could also get this combo via Mega evolution.

Normal/Ghost: The most common one I’ve seen for this combo is a bedsheet ghost. But I’m going to get more creative and have the Pokemon representing this type be a regional variant of Ursaring that’s based on the spirit bear which is a subspecies of black bear that lives in Canada.
 
For reference, I’ll nick the list of remaining combos from my other post:

Not counting Arceus’s forms, there has never been an Ice-, Poison-, Ground-, or Dragon-type Mythical Pokémon.

Meanwhile, not counting Silvally’s forms, Bug is the only type that remains unrepresented by a Legendary Pokémon (unless you count the Ultra Beasts, in which case there’s Buzzwole and Pheromosa).

More generally, there are currently 17 completely unused type combinations:

Normal/Ice
Normal/Poison
Normal/Bug
Normal/Rock
Normal/Ghost
Normal/Steel
Grass/Fire
Fighting/Electric
Fighting/Ground
Fighting/Fairy
Poison/Ice
Poison/Steel
Fairy/Fire
Fairy/Ground
Bug/Dragon
Bug/Dark
Rock/Ghost

In addition, due to the removal of Mega Evolution (and thus Mega Altaria) in Sword & Shield, there are currently no Dragon/Fairy-type Pokémon, either.

As it stands, some type combinations have only ever appeared on Legendary or Mythical Pokémon, or Ultra Beasts. These are:

Fire/Water (Volcanion)
Fire/Steel (Heatran)
Fighting/Ghost (Marshadow)
Rock/Fighting (Terrakion)
Rock/Poison (Nihilego)
Psychic/Ghost (Hoopa Confined, Lunala, Shadow Rider Calyrex)
Dragon/Ice (Kyurem)
Dragon/Psychic (Latias, Latios, Ultra Necrozma)

And lastly, Ice/Fire and Dragon/Fairy are the only extant type combinations that cannot yet exist outside of battle, since they are borne only by Galarian Darmanitan’s Zen Mode and Mega Altaria, respectively.

For Grass/Fire, I feel obligated to mention the usual suggestion of a pepper Pokémon. I think it is seriously amazing that this hasn’t happened yet. There’s several fruit- and vegetable-based Pokémon by now, so it would fit right in. Maybe they think it’s too obvious?

Normal-type combinations are tricky, especially with something like Steel. Steel has such a dominant profile that I think any Normal/Steel-type would beg the question of why it’s not just mono-Steel. Maybe a kind of mammal that picks up scrap metal and turns it into armor, kind of like Burmy? Rodents are often hoarders, so maybe you could work with that.
 
I always pictured a Normal/Steel combo as a porcupine, which is another animal we haven’t had yet. As for Grass/Fire I always thought it would be cool to have a Pokemon based on the burning bush from the book of exodus.

For Poison/Ice I’d have this combo represented by the Greenland shark. The reason being is because it has toxic flesh and only inhabits the colder oceans of the world.
 
Some ideas:
  • Poison/Steel Pokémon based on the element mercury since mercury compounds are incredibly toxic, perhaps with a more extreme form of Poison Point/Touch as an ability
  • Bug/Dark could be inspired by any number of parasitic wasps considering what they do to reproduce--i.e. laying their eggs inside/on/near a live insect, which then hatch and promptly eat the victim alive (sometimes the victim is paralyzed)--is so outright horrifying that they influenced Charles Darwin; he couldn't believe a benevolent God would intentionally design animals that reproduce in such a cruel manner
  • Fairy/Ground jackalope Pokémon
 
Some ideas:
  • Poison/Steel Pokémon based on the element mercury since mercury compounds are incredibly toxic, perhaps with a more extreme form of Poison Point/Touch as an ability
  • Bug/Dark could be inspired by any number of parasitic wasps considering what they do to reproduce--i.e. laying their eggs inside/on/near a live insect, which then hatch and promptly eat the victim alive (sometimes the victim is paralyzed)--is so outright horrifying that they influenced Charles Darwin; he couldn't believe a benevolent God would intentionally design animals that reproduce in such a cruel manner
  • Fairy/Ground jackalope Pokémon

Meltan and Melmetal coulda’ maybe been Steel/Poison; they resemble mercury, so if they’d played that up a bit more rather than the hex nut concept...

Bug/Dark is another one that I kinda can’t believe we haven’t seen yet. Dark, dank areas are like the #1 place you expect to find bugs!
 
Ghost/Rock: A tombstone or a haunted statue would be ideal.

Fighting/Ground: Either a Pokemon that looks like an American Football player or one that has a fighting style based on Senegalese wrestling.
 

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For Normal/Ghost I'd like to see a zombie Pokemon.

Other than that, all I can think of for new type combinations is regional variants. We've had multiple type combos filled by regional variants in the past two generations, so we'll probably see more. In particular I'm thinking:

Grass/Fire- Sunkern/Sunflora variant (Sunflora is the sunflower Pokemon, so why not make it a literal sunflower and have it use the sun's energy to power fire attacks? Sunflora could also use an evolution with this variant due to its middling stats)
Normal/Ice- Stoutland variant (It has thick fur and rescues people in blizzards, so it's not hard to believe that there's a variant that could properly adapt to the cold)
Bug/Dragon- Vibrava/Flygon variant (The Flygon line is vaguely insectoid, so I could see it getting a Bug variant. I imagine this one might live in swamps)
 
I think another regional variant of Raticate would be good for Normal/Poison as a reference to how rats often carry diseases (bubonic plague anyone?)

As for fairy/ground the perfect candidate would be something based on the fairy armadillo. Look at it! It’s practically begging to be turned into a Pokemon!
 

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Steel/Poison: This should definitely be something that’s based on mercury, which is one of the most toxic metals.
I've wanted to see this for a while, too! It could have the ability Corrosion.

Also, my idea for a Normal/Ghost type is something based on yin and yang. When I was little, I imagined a ghost-type counterpart to Skitty.
 
Electric/Fighting: Zeraora should’ve had this combo to begin with. But this combo can go to Electivire if it ever gets a mega one day.

Normal/Rock: A fossil based on the atlas bear, which was a species of bear that lived in Africa before it was hunted to extinction.

Bug/Dragon: This combo should definitely be represented by a Pokemon based on the dragon tail butterfly.
 

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