Magikarp

Jump. It leaps out of the water for no apparent reason and falls back in, and that absurdly repetitive habit is what led a group of scientists to study it in depth, according to one of the Pokédex entries. The others present it as the weakest, simplest Pokémon of them all, practically useless in battle and easy prey for anything that happens to pass by. That last point has an ecological consequence the Pokédex itself acknowledges — some species survive precisely because there are always Magikarp around.

And there are always Magikarp around because it can withstand almost anything. It lives in any body of water, even polluted water, and reproduces at a rate the entries describe as overwhelming. A 90-centimeter, 10-kilogram red carp, with two long whiskers and a mouth that bites nothing.

The whole thing comes with a melancholy footnote: in the distant past, it was stronger than its weak descendants are today. What it was back then is never made clear. What it can become is — at level 20, it turns into Gyarados, and the joke ends all at once.

Two hundred base stat points, and the highest of the six is Speed: 80. The rest is one sustained joke. Attack 10, Special Attack 15, HP 20, Special Defense 20. Defense, at 55, is the only figure that would survive a second look, and it is not much use with 20 HP behind it.

Swift Swim doubles that Speed when it is raining, leaving it moving before almost anything else at its level. The problem comes when deciding what to do with the turn. Its entire movepool consists of three moves: Splash at level 1, which has no effect whatsoever; Tackle at 15, Normal-type and 40 power; and Flail at 25, whose power increases as its own health drops. With 10 Attack, a Flail used right on the brink of fainting still fails to knock anything out. None of the three is Water-type, so the type's resistances and its two weaknesses, Grass and Electric, only matter when something hits it.

There is no format where this competes, and it is best to say that plainly. Its role is elsewhere: dead weight carried in the team during a normal playthrough until level 20, or bait in a double battle, where Splash at least does not waste useful PP. Its hidden ability, Rattled, raises its Speed when it takes Bug-, Ghost-, or Dark-type attacks; it gives it one more turn of life before it goes down. Defeating it yields 1 Speed EV and 40 base experience points.

It belongs to the Water 2 and Dragon Egg Groups, and the second is the one that stands out, because there is not a drop of Dragon typing on its sheet. The gender ratio is 50% and 50%, so any two specimens are enough to breed without relying on a Ditto.

The incubation period is 5 cycles, around 1530 steps, among the shortest in the Pokédex: the eggs come out almost as quickly as they are laid, which fits the reproductive capacity mentioned in the entries. There are no Egg Moves worth mentioning. It learns all three moves on its own, and there is nothing else to inherit.

The evolution has no trick to it: reach level 20. No items, no time of day, no friendship, no trades. What does complicate the process is its Slow growth rate, the most demanding of the usual ones, combined with its own 40 base experience points. Every bit of experience it gains comes from fighting someone else.

Its habitat is the water's edge, and its catch rate, 255, is the highest possible: an ordinary Poké Ball on a full-health specimen is almost always enough.