Pokedle: Classic, Silhouette, Flavor Text and Card modes explained — with the opening guesses that split Classic best

How Classic feedback works, column by column

Each guess adds a row of seven cells. The game's help screen defines the colours: green means the property is an exact match, orange a partial match, and red no overlap; on number columns a red cell also carries an arrow showing whether the answer's value is above or below your guess. In Pokedle the arrow columns are Evolution Stage, Height and Weight. Color(s) is the column most likely to turn orange, because 50 of the 151 Pokémon in the game's data list two colours, and a guess that shares one of them is a partial.

The two Type columns are compared slot by slot: Type 1 against the answer's Type 1, Type 2 against its Type 2, with "None" treated as a value like any other — the help's own example calls two Pokémon without a second type an exact match. The settings include a Partial types option; with it enabled, a type that is correct but in the other column shows orange instead of red. Height and Weight are compared after rounding to the unit you play in — metres and kilograms by default, with toggles in the settings to switch to imperial units.

A first guess that splits the Pokédex

Because the game ships its full roster — 151 Pokémon with all seven properties — the quality of an opening guess can be measured rather than argued. For every possible opener, HintSheet computed the colours and arrows it would return against each of the 151 possible answers, and the average number of Pokémon still consistent with that feedback (Partial types off, metric units). The best openers by that measure are Staryu (5.2 Pokémon left on average), Persian and Vaporeon (5.25 each), Wigglytuff and Drowzee (5.4). The worst are Dragonite (55.6), Onix (49.9), Golem (48.2), Venusaur (44.4) and Charizard (42.7).

The reason shows in the data. The good openers sit near the middle of the Height and Weight ranges — the median Pokémon is 1.0 m and 30 kg — and at evolution stage 1 or 2, where most of the roster is (79 Pokémon at stage 1, 56 at stage 2, 16 at stage 3), so every arrow removes a large share whichever way it points. The poor openers are the extremes: the tallest and heaviest Pokémon get a down arrow against nearly every answer, which tells you almost nothing. Popular picks sit in between — Pikachu leaves 14.0 Pokémon on average, Bulbasaur 21.8.

A Classic game in four guesses

The Europe Classic answer in our file for 2 September 2026 (#1055) was Dragonite. Here is how the feedback plays out from the Staryu opener, using the property values in the game's own data; each later guess is the remaining candidate that splits the rest best.

• Guess 1 — Staryu (Water / None, Sea, Brown + Yellow, stage 1, 0.8 m, 34.5 kg). Against Dragonite (Dragon / Flying, Waters-edge, Orange, stage 3, 2.2 m, 210 kg) every category cell is red, and Stage, Height and Weight all point up. Ten Pokémon fit that: Venusaur, Charizard, Nidoqueen, Nidoking, Golbat, Graveler, Golem, Gengar, Rhydon and Dragonite.
• Guess 2 — Nidoking (Poison / Ground, Grassland, Purple, stage 3, 1.4 m, 62 kg). Stage turns green; Height and Weight still point up; every other cell is red. Only Charizard and Dragonite remain.
• Guess 3 — Charizard (Fire / Flying, Mountain, Orange, stage 3, 1.7 m, 90.5 kg). Type 2 (Flying) and Color(s) (Orange) turn green alongside Stage; Height and Weight still point up. One Pokémon is left.
• Guess 4 — Dragonite. All seven cells green. The same method finishes the Europe answer in our file for 11 October 2026 (#1094, Ivysaur) in three: Staryu leaves six candidates and Butterfree leaves one. Run over all 151 possible answers, a Staryu opener followed by the best remaining candidate each time finishes in two guesses 50 times, in three 97 times and in four only 3 times.

Silhouette, Flavor Text and Card

These modes give no property feedback. A wrong guess changes the picture instead: the help screens say the Silhouette "zooms out a bit" with each try and the Card "unblurs a bit" — "but only the visual part of the Pokémon".

Silhouette ("With a shadow" in the menu) shows the Pokémon's shadow, starting zoomed in. The help notes that "the visual can be from any extension", so the outline is not always taken from the same artwork.

Flavor Text (listed in the menu as Description, "With a Pokédex sentence") shows a description of the Pokémon "as it can be found in the Pokédex or at the bottom of a playing Card". If the Pokémon's name appears in the sentence, it is hidden.

Card ("With a blurry card") shows a trading card that can come "from any extension" — any card set. Every mode, Classic included, picks from the same 151 Generation 1 Pokémon, and in our files from 2 September to 11 October 2026 no Pokémon was the answer in two modes of the same puzzle.

Why there are Europe and America answers

Pokedle's Time zone setting offers two options: Europe, "(Midnight at UTC+2)", and America, "(Midnight at UTC-6)". They are not two different games. Both play the same numbered sequence of puzzles; each number reaches America first, at midnight UTC−6 (06:00 UTC), and Europe at the next Europe midnight, 22:00 UTC. Across the 41 puzzles in our files for 2 September to 11 October 2026 (#1055 to #1095), every number recorded for both regions has the same four answers in both.

That is why the answer page shows two sets. When our fetcher last read the game for a date, the two regions were on the same puzzle on 24 of the 40 dates and America was one number ahead on the other 16. The puzzle number beside each answer is the reliable way to match a row to the game in front of you; the game's own share text carries it too (its example reads "I found #Pokédle pokémon #206 in classic mode in 2 shots").

Modes compared, briefly

What each mode shows, and what a wrong guess changes, as the game's menu and help screens describe them (read 11 October 2026).

How the answers are read

Pokedle publishes each day's answers for every mode in an encrypted cache file at cache.pokedle.net, which the game's own pages read. HintSheet's fetcher reads that same public file several times a day and publishes the answer for each mode and region, with its puzzle number; nobody types the answers in. The file does not carry the Classic properties of the answer, so the answer page lists names and numbers only — the tables in this guide come from the roster data in the game's code. The Dle games hub explains the family these games belong to, and the LoLdle guide covers the sister game whose Classic mode uses the same colour rules.

Habitat and colour, two columns without arrows

Habitat has nine values in the game's data: Grassland (35 Pokémon), Urban (22), Forest (21), Waters-edge (19), Mountain (18), Sea (15), Cave (8), Rough-terrain (8) and Rare (5). It is a straight match or no match. Color(s), which the help describes as "the dominant color(s) of the Pokémon", has eleven values — Yellow (31), Blue (30), Brown (29), Purple (26), White (18), Orange (16), Red, Pink and Gray (12 each), Green (10) and Black (5) — and because a third of the roster lists two colours, it is the column where orange appears most. A red on a large group is the useful result: a Grassland guess that comes back red removes 35 of the 151 at once, and a green on Rare leaves five.

Reader questions

"Why does the answer page show two Classic answers?" Europe and America sit at different points of the same sequence for part of each day. Check the Time zone setting in the game, then read that region's row.

"Are Mega or regional forms in the game?" No. The roster in the game's code is the 151 original Pokémon, Bulbasaur to Mew, one entry each.

"Can I keep my streak on a new device?" Yes — the settings have a Transfer my data option that exports your streaks and stats as a token, valid for 24 hours, to paste into the other device.

Generation One only: the roster

Pokedle on pokedle.net draws every answer from Generation 1. The roster embedded in the game's code has exactly 151 entries, from Bulbasaur to Mew; the image modes display a "Generation: 1" label; and the Evolution Stage help text says the stage counts "only taking the first generation into account". All 164 answers in our files from 2 September to 11 October 2026 (41 puzzles across four modes) are Generation 1 Pokémon. There is therefore no generation column to read: in Classic the narrowing is done by the two Type columns and the three arrow columns, Evolution Stage, Height and Weight.

Card mode: reading a blur

The Card mode's help says it shows a card that "can be from any extension" — any trading-card set — and that each try unblurs the image, "but only the visual part of the Pokémon". The day's answer data names the card only by an image file, so HintSheet's answer page gives the Pokémon's name, not the card. Because the answer pool is the same 151 Pokémon as every other mode, colour and body shape are what the early, blurrier views give you; in our files, Card answers over the 41 puzzles ranged from Magikarp to Dragonite, with no Pokémon repeated in that mode.

A forty-day tally

Our files for 2 September to 11 October 2026 hold 41 puzzle numbers (#1055 to #1095) and 164 answers across the four modes. They name 105 different Pokémon; 42 of them came up more than once across modes, led by Machop (four times) and Dratini, Kabutops, Beedrill, Golduck, Charmeleon, Weezing and Grimer (three times each). In Classic, 24 of the 41 answers had no second type, Water was the most common Type 1 (10) ahead of Normal (8), and 20 answers were at stage 2, 17 at stage 1 and 4 at stage 3. Forty-one draws are too few to predict anything from — the roster itself has more Water (28) and Normal (24) Type 1 Pokémon than any other type — but it is an honest picture of what six weeks of Pokedle looked like.

Evolution stage, the small column that has arrows

Evolution Stage takes the values 1, 2 and 3 and, being a number column, returns an arrow when it misses. In the roster 79 Pokémon are at stage 1, 56 at stage 2 and 16 at stage 3, so a stage-1 guess that comes back with an up arrow removes more than half the game at once, while a stage-3 guess that comes back green leaves at most 16 candidates. Combined with the Height and Weight arrows, it is what took the worked example above from ten candidates to two on the second guess.

Frequently asked questions

Recent Pokedle answers

Every past puzzle is in the Pokedle archive. New here? Start with the Pokedle guide.