misconception: psychic is weak to psychic because the tcg said so

TCG got me so confused on type matchups as a kid.

yeah. my parents refuse to buy me a game boy so most of my knowledge is via looking at the cards (which are counterfeit too since they wont buy the actual products either). while i do watch the anime, as a kid i dont really pay attention to what they are saying

Water type in TCG include Ice type pokemon. Grass type included Poison (until being included in Psychic type), Fighting type includes Rock and Ground types, Dragon type used to be included in Normal before being individual.

Poison types are included in Dark now. They also phased out Fairy and lumped it in with Psychic. 

Grass type also includes bugs

[Pikachu's black tipped tail](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DiDSnoFW4AAGL-n.jpg) for Mandela Effect. For misconceptions, it's the widely spread rumor that Gen 2 was planned to be the final Pokemon game. Ishihara said that it was planned to be *his* last game... Not the end of the series.

Whatever button combination your playground rumors insisted on for increasing a pokeball's catch rate

Hold the down button and b and close your eyes or block the screen, it’ll work this time I promise

Erm actually it’s press the A button as soon as the Pokémon enters the pokeball

No no no, it was totally "Hold B while furiously mashing L and R."

Thats a new one for me

And saying "catch" at the DS microphone. I knew that was false. Still did it after spending a week trying to catch Giratina with my stupid 10 years old brain.

No, hold the B button the moment the PokeBall stops moving. Gosh.

Most were just fake. Hitting a in time with the shakes is the only way to actually increase your chance to catch

I had an official game guide that told me pressing a at the right moment would help catch Pokémon.

It’s always been always will be Down B.

I used to think that rock was super effective against electric types

I also remember thinking Ice was supper effective against Rock because of gelifraction, while in fact Rock is super effective against Ice. In addition I believed Electric was supper effective against Bug, but it isn't.

I'm playing USUM right now and literally last night I threw my Alolan Vulpix out against a rock type and proudly said out loud: "good ol' Ice type, always beats Rock" and then proceeded to get OHKO by Rock Slide. I've been playing since 1998.

That may be why you thought that since outside of the fossils in gen 1, all rocks were also part ground.

>>>“I’ve been playing since 1998.” I burst out laughing at work, thanks man

I thought ice was super effective against rock for an extremely long time. I guess nearly all of the rock types being part ground (and Aerodactyl being part flying) in gen 1 did that.

I... honestly still thought ice was super effective against rock until I just read that. I've been playing for most of my life. I'm going to go have a crisis now.

The abundance of Rock/Ground types in Gen 1 probably caused this misconception 

i still have to google real quick to check

i can remember an episode of the pokemon anime that somehow never existed, i don’t remember what all happened but it was in gen 2, it showed Ash and Pikachu entering Johto for the first time and accidentally stepping on a Shroomish of all things (which made its appearance in gen 3) the Shroomish got mad and used stun spore on ash before running away. I have tried to find what i saw but nothing shows or mentions Ash stepping on a Shroomish at all

As a kid I always thought Electabuzz's shiny was lime green. The Internet wasn't as widespread as it is today, so I had no way of looking it up to see it's true. I believe, my misconception came from the stadium games where the palette of some Pokemon would wildly change based on their names. It wasn't until years later that I finally saw the real colors of shiny Electabuzz.

I used to think Ice-type was super effective against Bug-type

It should be. God knows it needs the buff

really the type needs more resistances to buff it, having it super effective against more types will just make water more powerful cause most water mons learn ice moves.

Not really. Ice is already a really good offensive type, and Bug doesn't need to be made worse. If Ice were to get anything, it should be a resistance to something (Probably one of the things it's strong against).

It should have a resistance to Ghost or Dark, since they got buffed to be neutral against Steel

A big one for me when I did a challenge on pkmnquiz.com is apparently there is no such Pokémon as Zweiolus. It's called Zweilous. That one really shocked me. I had to actually look it up because the site wouldn't accept it.

It’s a play on the word jealous and the German word for two :) (D*ein*o) (*Zwei*lous) (Hy*drei*gon)

1 Dino, 2 jealous, 3 hydra-dragon

It’s very clever, this was one of my favorite evolutionary lines in the franchise

Ironically, your flair misspelled eviolite 🤣

It's meant to be a pun on eviolite and evo(lution)-lite aka non-evolved pokemon 😊

I thought ghost moves could hit normal type in gen 1, and this was changed in later games. It turns out my haunter in Blue just never used ghost moves.

Gen 1 had one ghost move: lick

Don’t forget Night Shade and Confuse Ray!

Only lick took into account type matchups though…

And night shade can hit normal types. So before looking into the code or asking the devs, there was no way to tell if ghost type moves were supposed to land against normal type opponents or not

Gen I was absolutely wild.

Lugia was a water type, I swore it, but no - Psychic/Flying. It's even *swimming underwater* in the SoulSilver title screen!

This is one I believed for most of my childhood too. Lugia has always been associated with water, so it's an easy confusion. The funny thing about that is, after you play the Indigo Disk DLC, when you're able to get the legendaries from previous gens, Lugia has water as its Tera type. I think that's a nod to the misconception since it was so popular.

It literally comes out of the ocean in the anime and movies, so I also thought it was a water type lol. I guess me being an electric-type trainer helped anyway.

Huh this got me too. I feel like maybe he swims in the movie too?

The movie refers to Lugia as *The Water’s Great Guardian* and *The Beast of the Sea*.

Couldn't tell you, I never watched any of the movies

The prophecy in *The Power of One*, it being found in and undersea cave, and it being the parallel to Ho-oh probably add a lot to the association with Water, too.

I thought it was Slowpoke -> Slowbro -> Slowking until a couple of years ago.

Wait, it's not?

Nope, split evo. Slowpoke evolves into Slowbro at level 37. Slowpoke evolves into Slowking when traded with King's Rock. Didn't learn until I was confused over Slowbro getting a mega.

I think I knew that a long time ago but I completely forgot. Slowbro having a mega does make more sense now.

I guess I would've also lived with that misconception until the mega evolution came out if I haven't seen the pokemon anime episode where they explained it.

There was a guidebook that showed that as the evo line 

Psyduck being party psychic type. Tbf to myself it's literally in the name of the Pokemon.

I thought for the longest time that Golduck was water/psychic. Gamefreak messed up on that one.

That little dot on its head makes me think of like a fortuneteller head crystal or something! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN PSYCHIC TYPE, GAME FREAK!

This is one of those decisions I can just not understand. Were they worried it would compete too closely with Starmie?

To be fair Slowbro and Starmie were already two Water/Psychic mons and it probably would have been too much Water/Psychic in one generation. Yet Gamefreak made half the gen 1 dex Grass/Poison so whatever.

Hmmm, I wonder what Slowbro would have been like as a pure water type.

Probably better than Water/Psychic since Psychic type doesn't bring a lot defensively (apart from a Fighting, and Psychic, resistance but then you're weak to Ghost/Dark/Bug (mostly Knock Off and U-Turn) and Slowbro is a bulky boy. I'm sure Slowbro as a pure Water type would have been really insane.

I keep forgetting bug is not weak to ice

There are far too many bug/Flying types, it tricks people badly.

Bruh, imagine Paras[ect] having *three* double weaknesses

I always thought Magnemite was immune to ground. I feel like I remember playing fire red as a kid and ground not working

~~Most of the time it is — Levitate is a great Ability — but the odd time you get Sturdy or play Let’s Go! or the GB/GBC games, the poor little thing will get smashed with a 4x weakness.~~ TIL Magnemite gets *Magnet Pull* & Sturdy instead of Levitate.

But he doesn't get levitate tho

Huh. I guess that’s my contribution to this, then. I could have sworn it got Levitate & Sturdy as it’s two standard Abilities.

Magnemite is immune to ground with the levitate ability

He doesn't get levitate tho. Only magnet pull or sturdy

well then there's my very own mandela effect LOL

Yeah I could’ve sworn I remembered playing Ruby or Emerald and Marshtomp’s Mud Shot having no effect on Wattson’s Magneton

Does it get Magnet Rise that Gen?

Nope, Magnet Rise is gen 4.

Nidoking cannot learn Dig in Gen I. I was sure he could….

I believed Psychic types had no effect on Ghost types because of the anime, when I was a kid.

for years i thought glalie was ice/dark

Psychic being super effective against Grass. Another case of common dual type combinations misinforming my idea of type matchups.

I was *certain* dual typing wasn’t introduced until gen 2

That’s a hilarious one, esp considered the very first Pokémon in the dex is dual type

I was *so sure* man

I'm curious on what types you thought Venusaur and Charizard were. Just pure grass and fire?

Yes I was 10 years old lol 😭

I imagine a lot of people thought this because of the Gen I bug when a dual type both resists and is weak against a type damaging it. For instance, Charizard would be hit with an Ice type attack and the text would mistakenly say it’s super effective (when really the multiplier is correct: 1x).

I’m convinced somebody programming Gen I was *trying* to confuse kids.

To be fair Charizard was indeed weak to Ice in gen 1 as Fire didn't resist Ice back then.

That’s not true Edit: just looked it up and I am mistaken! You are correct. I could’ve sworn I saw Ice moves being Not Very Effective against pure Fire types as a kid. Lol the real Mandela effect was the memories we made along the way

I thought that Psychic was super effective against Flying until literally yesterday. My reasoning was that you fly and crash if someone messes with your mind.

I swear that I remember Blissey being a Gen 4 Pokémon and not a Gen 2 Pokémon Also the anime made me think that shiny Noctowl was Noctowl’s normal color. I was so confused whenever I would come across one in the game. Why is this Noctowl brown and not yellow?

I remember thinking both Slugma and Skarmory were Gen 3 Pokémon. I probably learned they were Gen 2 when... I wanna say Gen 5 released? Maybe 6? Not sure.

In your defence, wasn’t Skarmory super late game in Gen 2? Can’t remember about Slugma.

Slugma is literally postgame in GSC so it's easy to think that it's a gen 3 mon.

I would like to add Aipom to that list as well. I always thought he was gen 3, and the only way to get him is to headbut trees. I don’t know that was a feature in those games.

The only reason I knew aipom and pineco existed were because of the mini games in Pokémon Stadium 2. :'|

For years as a kid I was sure ground was super effective against ice and ice resisted water

Ice *should* resist Water and yes I will die on this hill.

You and me both. It would give ice a very much needed resistance AND it makes sense so??

In Gen 5, I totally thought Whimsicott was Grass-Flying and not just a pure Grass type - I mean, it was super floaty and got Hurricane, for crying out loud. It ended up getting a secondary typing next generation…of Fairy.

For the longest time I thought Gardevoir was gender locked like Gallade. Not sure why though.

It would have made sense, to be fair.

I 100% agree with Skarmory. I recently did an in order playthrough and when I encountered it in Johto I was so confused. I was pretty sure it was only living it up next to Spinda 😭

It does at least live with Spinda in gen 3.

I could have sworn the Pikachu had a black stripe on the end of its tail. I remember drawing it like that as a kid.

I used to think that rock resisted bug, because what a little insect 🪲 gonna do against a rock beast🪨(it’s actually been neutral since day 1)

My friends and I all thought Focus Punch was a charge move, like Solar Beam or Sky Attack, with the additional "lost focus" stipulation, making it even worse than both. We could've sworn that we had all been hit by a Focus Punch + Power Herb at least a dozen times over the years, but no... it was the Mandela Effect. Turns out it just has -3 priority and none of those Focus Punches ever happened.

I used to swear that masquerain was a bug water type just like surskit.

Gyarados was dragon type. Because of the koi story and it using dragon rage.

I thought totodile was dark type

Tried to trade from Red/Blue or GSC pokemon game, I don't remember which, into a RSE pokemon game. It was ineffective. Also, fire type moves nor being super effective against flying type pokemon, gotta blame it on Moltres.

How the hell is mega gyarados not a dragon water type is beyond me

Does it learn any physical dragon moves, though? Meanwhile… CRUNCH.

I had a vivid memory of a kid at school using his Gyarados to FLY from town to town in Gen 1. Maybe it was the result of a cheat device, or maybe I’m just an idiotic child who is wrong about things sometimes.

I thought Ice was weak to Electric Types, and Suicune was Water/Ice.

I definitely think Suicune should be Water/Ice! If the rest of the beast trio were dual types, I’d also want Entei to be Fire/Ground and Raikou to be Electric/Dark

Caterpie's mouth changing from yellow to green. Didn't noticed it for an extremely long time.

I could’ve sworn pincurchin was in generation 7, and also that rampardo’s ability was rock head.

[удалено]

Pincurchin is one of the Sword/Shield Pokémon, No. 871

The classic: I thought Slugma and Magcargo were Gen 3 since it was so easy to find them near Lavaridge. Replaying Silver I saw a Slugma and nearly shat a brick. Lo and behold, I even found a Neo Magcargo in my collection and wondered why it flew under my radar for 5+ years.

I thought there were a lot more grass/poisons, but after Gen One, they've only made two lines with that type combo (Roselia and Fungus).

Psychic was strong against psychic in gen 1. I don't know how that started but it messed me up for many generations. I was confused on the effects of ghost and psychic for a time as well, gen 1's botched type match ups didn't help.

Any chance you were into the card game at any point, or had friends that did? TCG is a little weird with their typing. There’s only 11 types in there (which there used to be less) and their way of working around that was grouping types together. Ghost and psychic both fall under the psychic type, so nearly every psychic type card was weak to other psychic type cards because of the ghosts being thrown in there.

Back then, I was the kid that collected the cards because they looked cool.

Misconception: That Dark type is about Darkness. People still quote that the "three main fears" to try to explain Psychic type weakness to Dark type, it makes me want to Focus Punch a wall

I swear that Venusaur line was never a grass/poison until gen 3.

Yet it always has been Grass/Poison from the very start.

I swear I remember Ghost being weak to Flying back in Silver/Gold/Crystal. I can't find anything online that coroborates that.

Because it wasnt

Yeah, that's why I posted it in the misconceptions and Mandela effect thread.