Alder (Pokémon Black and White)

Alder is technically not a specialist trainer, but his party sure does lean on the oft-underappreciated bug type. Half his team is made up of Pokémon based on creepy crawlers, but the other three, Vanilluxe, Druddigon, and Bouffalant, feel kind of random in a way that would be compelling if his team wasn’t primarily made of bugs. The trouble with Alder’s team is that few of his Pokémon seem to have much that can counter obvious answers to its makeup. The spread of type coverage just isn’t there, and even the Pokémon he has don’t have many moves to push back against a good fire-type sweep, aside from perhaps Bouffalant’s ground and rock moves. Druddigon can stall in that scenario, but odds are if your team is well-rounded, you have an ice- or dragon-type move that can deal with it.

My team has a Beautifly in it, so I love me a good bug-type Pokémon, but I also recognize the type comes with a lot of caveats. It’s not particularly strong and has a lot of counters, so it’s not often they can form the basis of a strong, competitive team without some careful meta-based planning you won’t need in any game’s actual story mode. So while I appreciate Alder’s desire to represent the underrepresented, his team is just waiting to get rolled over.