A PowerPoint about Pokemon that got WAY Better (2024)

Gengar is a very interesting case study in this imo. I would posit that no mon has recieved more consistent generation after generation buffs than the funny ghost man.
Gengar was an interesting mon in gen 1 OU. As the tier's only ghost type in a normal dominated meta, being one of the only mons capable of swapping into hyper beam or body slam without taking heavy damage. It also has rather high special attack and an excellent 110 base speed tier, allowing it to speed tie the mighty Tauros. It has a decent enough special movepool with thunderbolt and psychic, super fast though inaccurate sleep, and even explosion. It had everything except for stab moves, which were both very weak and physical making them not even remotely worth using. Despite its moveset awkwardness though, it still had a place in OU because its typing was just that good.
Gen 2 Gengar was mostly the same as Gen 1 Gengar, with the notable additions of the elemental punches allowing it to complete its coverage and letting it go on the offensive. It also was gifted with Destiny Bond, giving it a new way to sacrifice itself to take out an opponent. The addition of Shadow Ball didn't really help it at all as Gengar's physical attack was still quite bad. Overall Gengar got some meaningful buffs that didn't meaningfully change how it played.
Gen 3 saw Gengar go from being decent to excellent. It got levitate, which removes a solid chunk of the normal drawbacks associated with its poison typing and gives it an embarrassment of abusable immunities to swap in on. Taunt and Will O Wisp give it some excellent utility options for stopping hazard setup or punishing physical attackers looking for an easy KO like TTar.
In gen 4 Gengar was one of the game's biggest beneficiaries from the physical/special split. Up until now, Gengar basically didn't have STAB moves due to both poison and ghost being physical. With the addition of special ghost and poison moves, Gengar effectively got a 1.5 times boost to its still-excellent 130 base special attack, allowing it to be a real threat. It also got the powerful but unreliable focus blast, which when combined with shadow ball gave it perfect neutral coverage. Gengar no longer relied on hitting things super effectively to deal meaningful damage, and could instead threaten things all on its own. It also quite enjoyed the new life orb and black sludge items, the former giving it even more power at the cost of usually-not-relevant life and the latter being a poison-specific leftovers that punishes trick users.
Gen 5 might be the only gen where Gengar didn't see a major buff. It doesn't especially care for the weather wars meta, but it found some niches anyway just off the strength of its gen 4 buffs.
Gen 6 gave us Mega Gengar and a bunch of brand new targets in the fairy type. It also nerfed steel types so Gengar's shadow ball can hit things like Aegislash and Metagross super effectively.
In gen 7 Gengar lost levitate for cursed body. Normally, this would be a massive nerf, but it just so happened that in that same generation, they introduced the terrain setting tapus who proceeded to define the entire meta game. As it turns out, Gengar absolutely loves every single terrain. Psychic terrain makes it immune to the dreaded priority moves, letting it stay in on things like Bisharp and Azumarill without fear of just dying to priority. Electric Terrain beefs up its thunderbolt to STAB levels and makes it immune to sleep, making Gengar one of the best offensive Breloom checks in the game. Even Grassey Terrain can offset Life Orb damage and make weaker Earthquakes survivable. The only terrain Gengar isn't completely in move with is Misty Terrain, and even then Tapu Fini being swap in bait for Gengar is not a bad thing in the slightest. Far from losing its place in OU, Gengar is arguably stronger here than it was in gen 6 (ignoring Mega Gengar).
Dunno what happened to Gengar after that. I imagine the Cursed Body nerf started actually mattering after the Tapus got cut.