#37 - #38: Vulpix & Ninetales

Official art of Vulpix.

Next up on my list are the pure fire types Vulpix and Ninetales. Yeah... pure fire types.

You see, everything about their flavor indicates they should have had a secondary typing, probably ghost or maybe even psychic. Well, at least Ninetales should have... Because even though Vulpix is capable of manipulating fire to such precision that it can create floating wisps of flame, is born with one white tail that splits into six and learns most of the moves that define their flavor, such as Extrasensory, Hex, Spite, Grudge, Feint Attack, Confuse Ray, Hypnosis and even Will-O-Wisp (almost all fire and ghost types can learn this move, but I'll mention it just for the sake of making my point; besides, aside from Vulpix and the Fennekin line, another line of fiery foxes, only some ghost-type moves can learn this move by level-up), Ninetales is the one Pokémon in this evolution line that is the most fascinating. Vulpix is cute and all, but Ninetales is where things get weird. It is a very beautiful Pokémon, but it is also very vengeful towards those who mistreat it, laying a 1,000-year curse on them. Ninetales can live for 1,000 years due to the energy within its nine tails, each of which is said to have its own mystical power. That is not all, though: Ninetales is based on a kitsune, a fox-like creature of Japanese folklore that have many tails, have extremely long lifespans and can breathe fire. After a long-lived life, kitsune take on spirit forms, which is exactly the reason why Ninetales should have had a secondary ghost typing to begin with. And the ability to learn Shadow Ball, while we're at it.

Beautiful, majestic Ninetales.

That is not to say that Ninetales doesn't learn any other good moves, however. You might want to make sure to have a Ninetales with its hidden ability, which is Drought. It conjures up the sun for at least five turns and powers up its fire-type moves by 50% while weakening any super effective water-type moves opponents might use against Ninetales by 50% as well. This ability is excellent for setting up, because Ninetales can learn Nasty Plot, which is a start move that sharply raises its somewhat mediocre special attack stat. That, combined with Drought, the item Life Orb, its excellent special defense and speed stats, and the moves Solar Beam, Flamethrower and Psyshock, makes for an excellent competitive Pokémon in the NU tier. That way, you can go all-offensive and you won't have to spend a move slot on Sunny Day or Will-O-Wisp. You could go for the Hypnosis/Dream Eater combo, but Hypnosis has such low accuracy that it's not really worth it. Besides, Psyshock is more reliable and consistent and, above all, hits for physical damage rather than special damage, while still making use of Ninetales' special attack stat. That is quite useful against specially bulky opponents and provides for more coverage anyway.

Shiny Ninetales is one of my favorite shinies.

One more reason why Ninetales is one of my favorite Pokémon is its shiny form. Usually, Ninetales are beige with brown tail tips, but shiny Ninetales is grey with blue tail tips. It is... beautiful. One of my favorite shiny Pokémon for sure. Also, this color scheme fits Ninetales' flavor of being a mystical creature even more than its regular color scheme, as it looks more like a ghost-type Pokémon (there I go again about its should-be secondary typing!) when it's shiny. I love Ninetales for everything it stands for, though, so I can't help but give it a perfect rating of five stars!

Rating: 5/5