Sandshrew Needs To Go Away

I’ve complained about individual Pokemon in the past. A while ago, I ranted about how Dragonite is ugly and fat and that Dragonair’s evolution makes no sense. Today, I am going to rant about another Pokemon. A Pokemon also from the Kanto region. In this article, we’re going to talk about Sandshrew.

Now, normally, Sandshrew is an okay Pokemon. The name is a bit obvious, but eh, it looks alright. It’s a pretty basic rock/ground type. Sandslash is a bit on the ugly side, but I don’t mind it so much, since I still have a Sandslash I used back when I was very much a noob. The family also includes an Alolan version. The Alolan version looks similar but with different colours. Kanto Sandshrew is yellow while Alolan Sandshrew is white. It’s also a different type, ice and steel. Which gives it a large plethora of weaknesses. Both forms are alright, and they both had a community day some day in the past, but that community day was so forgettable that I don’t even remember what year it was.

The problem with Sandshrew is that it is still spawning. It has been a common spawn since January. In January, both Kanto and Alolan Sandshrew spawned on the regular. As the weather got hotter, Alolan Sandshrew somewhat faded away, but Sandshrew remained a common spawn. Now we’re in August, 8 months later, and we’re still getting Sandshrew spawns. Heck, we’re in the middle of an event for grass and fairy types, but I’ve seen more Sandshrews this morning than I’ve seen fairy types.

This shouldn’t even be a thing. Sandshrew is so common that it leaks into incense and event spawns, and has done so since early this year. Every time I use an incense, there’s a good chance that I’ll see a Sandshrew. It’s almost always there. Only during the Adventure Week did I not see one while using incense, but I did spot a couple of them in the wild, despite most spawns being fossil Pokemon. I see Sandshrew more than I see other common trash spawns like Mareep, Glameow and Bunnelby. The only place I haven’t seen Sandshrew is as my daily Pokemon spawn, but that’s normally a trash Pokemon as well.

Not only that, but Alolan Sandshrew is clogging up Team Rocket fights as well. Most of the time, for the rare “Iron Will” grunt, you get either an Alolan Diglett or an Alolan Sandshrew. Up until recently, it’s been Alolan Sandshrew, and Aron has been completely kicked out of the Team Rocket lineup. Alolan Sandslash also appears pretty regularly, but only as the third in the lineup. Still, even here, Sandshrew is still annoyingly common.

The thing is, there are so, so many Pokemon we could have spawning in Sandshrew’s place. Instead of Sandshrew, why not have something like Drillbur? Drillbur actually has some use as a ground type, and also has a better shiny. We could also have Hippopotas, or perhaps more Numel, which also have better shinies. There’s a whole spectrum of rock and ground types we could have instead of Sandshrew.

But no, we can’t have that. Gotta have more damn Sandshrews.

Stupid rodents.