Sudowoodo

A petrified tree: wood gradually replaced by mineral over time, keeping its shape without keeping the material. That is where this thing comes from, and it is why it is a pure Rock type despite looking like a trunk with branches. The Pokédex itself spells it out — its composition is closer to rock than to a plant.

The disguise serves a practical purpose: looking like a tree so nobody attacks it. It has two flaws. The first is seasonal, because in winter its upper limbs stay green while everything around it is bare. The second is water. It hates it enough to run off as soon as it starts raining, and just throwing a little water over it is enough to send it sprinting away.

The more recent entries go in another direction and are pretty funny. It appears in specialist magazines read by older people, has senior-citizen fans, and those fans judge specimens by how long and angular the green part is. It is collected in much the same way as a bonsai.

It is 1.20 m tall and weighs 38 kg, which explains why it can be mistaken for a young tree rather than an oak. It closes the line opened by Bonsly and does not evolve into anything else. Males have a longer forked branch on their heads than females.

Of its 410 base stat points, more than half go into two figures: 115 Defense and 100 Attack. The rest comes up short — 70 HP, 65 Special Defense and a double 30 in Special Attack and Speed. That 30 Speed means moving last against almost anything that is not a sleeping Pokémon.

Rock Head is the ability that defines what it can do: it negates recoil, and its movepool is full of recoil moves. Double-Edge at level 44 with 120 power, Wood Hammer from level 1 with another 120 — the fake tree hitting with wood — and Head Smash at 48 with 150. Without the ability, that plan destroys itself in three turns. The alternative is Sturdy, which prevents it from being knocked out in one hit from full HP and fits the physical-wall role better, along with Stealth Rock via TM.

On offence, the Rock type punishes Fire, Ice, Flying and Bug, and a 100 Attack stat with Stone Edge does real damage there. Defensively, the numbers look worse: five weaknesses, including Water, Grass, Fighting and Ground, all common and all physical or nearly so. A Ludicolo hits it for quadruple damage without breaking a sweat.

It is not competitive, and it is worth saying that plainly. Its 65 Special Defense crumples to any neutral special attack, it has no way to recover health beyond Rest and its Speed rules it out of any exchange that depends on moving first. Where it does work is in a normal playthrough: as a physical wall that absorbs contact hits, with Sucker Punch at level 28 to finish off fast, frail opponents, and Counter at 40, which makes exactly the right use of its tendency to move last.

Mineral Egg Group and Mineral only, which limits the possible pairings quite a bit: rocks with rocks, gears and assorted minerals. The gender split is clean, 50% female, so there is no need to fight the odds to get the one you want. The 20 Egg cycles work out to roughly 5355 steps, an average figure that does not force you to spend an eternity riding your bike in circles.

In Scarlet and Violet it has no Egg Moves, so the only things passed down through breeding are IVs and the Nature transferred with the relevant items. Everything else comes from levelling up or TMs.

The evolution does have a trick to it: Bonsly levels up while knowing Mimic, with no minimum level, items or time-of-day requirement. If the baby forgets the move, it does not evolve. Curiously, Sudowoodo learns Mimic again on its own at level 16, already after evolving.

Its habitat is the forest, which fits a creature that spends its life pretending to be part of the scenery. Its catch rate, 65, sits in the awkward middle ground: quite a bit tougher than an ordinary route Pokémon, but somewhat easier to handle than the starters' 45. It grows at a Medium rate, gives 2 Defense EVs when defeated and wild specimens can be found holding a Hard Stone.