Magby

Gold and Silver brought breeding in 1999, and with breeding came the baby forms: new links placed before species that had already existed since the first generation and that only hatched from eggs. Magby is the one assigned to Magmar, at number 240 in the National Pokédex.

What defines the animal is temperature. It has magma for blood and its body reaches 600 °C, a figure the Pokédex entries repeat from game to game without ever lowering it. It breathes fire without meaning to: flames come out of its nose and mouth as it inhales and exhales. Those flames also serve as a thermometer. Yellow means it is healthy; if black smoke comes out with them, it is tired; if small flames drip from its snout, it has a cold, and the Pokédex’s proposed remedy is a magma bath.

It weighs 21,4 kg spread across 70 centimetres, a density that fits the idea of a baby poorly and that of a walking block of hot rock rather well. Its official category is Ember Pokémon and its habitat is the mountains: it appears near volcanoes and, if given food, gets excited and spits fire at those same 600 °C.

There is one detail that almost no other species has. According to one of the entries, renowned potters live alongside Magby because its gentle flames are good for firing large pieces. A specific human trade, written into the Pokédex entry.

The 365 points are front-loaded and aimed at getting out. Its Speed, 83, is its best figure and the only one that lets it move first against rivals its size; its Attack, 75, is ahead of its Special Attack, 70, although the difference is so small that neither fully takes charge. Then come the problems: 45 HP and 37 Defense. That 37 is the number that sums it up. Any neutral physical hit knocks it out, and it does not need to be Water-, Rock-, or Ground-type.

Flame Body is the default ability and burns on the slightest contact, punishing anyone who finishes it off at close range even if it is no longer around to see it. Vital Spirit, its Hidden Ability, prevents it from falling asleep, and against an opponent that relies on sleeping powders it is worth more than it seems.

As a pure Fire type, it has no resistances that fifty other Pokémon do not share, but offensively it covers Grass, Ice, Bug, and Steel, and runs into Water, Rock, Fire, and Dragon. Its own arsenal is short and late: Fire Punch at level 28, Smog at 32, Flamethrower at 40, and Fire Blast at 48, by which point it should have evolved eighteen levels ago. Confuse Ray, at 20, is the most useful thing it learns early.

Outside formats that allow the first stage of an evolutionary line, there is no reason to use it. In a normal playthrough it does its job between levels 20 and 30, against Grass- or Bug-type Gyms, and only as long as it does not take anything in return.

It cannot breed. Its Egg Group is Undiscovered, like the rest of the baby Pokémon, so Magby neither lays nor produces eggs: the eggs are laid by Magmar or Magmortar when paired at the Day Care, and Magby hatches from them. Incubation takes 25 cycles, around 6630 steps, among the longest for a first-stage Pokémon.

The gender ratio is three males for every female: 25 % female. From the egg it can have Mach Punch, Dynamic Punch, Cross Chop, Focus Punch, Belly Drum, Follow Me, and Belch—in other words, four Fighting-type moves it would never learn by level, giving it the only real answer to the Rock types that stop it.

Evolving is the simple part: reach level 30, with no items, schedules, or friendship required. Magmar then evolves into Magmortar only by trading while holding a Magmarizer, and that is the hook to catching it in the wild, because a wild Magby can be holding that same Magmarizer. It can also be holding an Aspear Berry.

In the wild it lives in the mountains, near volcanoes, and its catch rate is 45. That is the figure of a difficult Pokémon: the same one used by a starter, not by a route-dwelling critter. Beating the Poké Ball out of a baby costs more than it does with many adult species.