Delibird got a lot of unexpected love in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, being the mascot of the many Delibird Presents shops around the Paldea region and having one of the strongest Paradox counterparts—Iron Bundle. But players would still like to see a meaningful buff for this gift-giving penguin.
Delibird is a lot of things—cute, generous, and full of holiday spirit. The one thing it doesn’t have going for it is viability on the battlefield. In fact, the penguin is one of the weaker ‘mons that doesn’t evolve in the Gen IX games. That’s because Delibird is plagued with awful stats, and its Abilities aren’t super desirable either. Its worst trait, however, has to be its signature move, Present.
Present can either heal or damage the target, and it’s all RNG-based. Realistically, you’d never want to use a move that could potentially heal your opponent. That just doesn’t make sense when the goal is to knock them out. The tradeoff isn’t worth it either since Present’s base power also depends on RNG. It has the highest chance of having 40 base power (rather than 80 or 120), the same as Tackle. Yeah, it’s just an awful move all around.
Interestingly enough, Present’s unique ability to heal or deal damage is something it shares with Pollen Puff, a move that is incredibly good in competitive play. But rather than using RNG to determine whether it heals or deals damage, Pollen Puff always heals allies and always damages opponents with 90 base power. This is a move that made Amoonguss an even better support ‘mon than it already was. Delibird could also benefit significantly if Present were reworked to function like that, as suggested by AndyLaVGC on X (formerly Twitter).
Delibird’s newfound ability to heal its allies would work well with other moves it gets access to, like Icy Wind, Tailwind, Fake Out, and Haze, to make it more of a support ‘mon than an offensive one. The penguin would still be held back by its poor defensive stats, but you could make a case for it on a cheeky snow team with Aurora Veil. Or, perhaps it can hold the Eviolite one day if it ever gets an evolution it desperately needs. Until then, its powerful penguin friend, Iron Bundle, will gladly take advantage of the reworked Present.
And even outside of a competitive context, this rework just makes sense. You’d want to give a good present to your allies and a less desirable present to your enemies. That’s how Present should have worked ever since double battles were introduced back in Gen III. Instead, Delibird is still stuck with a bad signature move, bad Abilities, and bad stats. Hopefully, this penguin will see some buffs in the future.
