In Magic: The Gathering, where the collector market considers cards to be investments it's frankly barbaric to play an actual game with, the equivalent is an unofficial format called Sharpie Cube, or Redacted Cube
In company with other halfling creatures introduced in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth , it can quickly fill the battlefield with tokens and enable their synergies, especially with the ones that are harder to block, such as Feasting Hobbit
Saruman's always been about forbidden knowledge, so delving deep into your opponent's decks as well as your own feels perfectly natural for our lord of the white council
So, if your opponent would knock out one of your Pokemon on the next Move, now they might be short of the firepower needed
This difference, and not only popularity of the Pokmon, may explain the differences in the PSA population report, which for 1st Edition lists 4345 Charmander, 4179 Squirtle and only 2273 Bulbasaur