The Pokémon Company has announced new details regarding Pokémon Home. Notably, certain Pokémon will gain access to their Hidden Abilities for the first time in Sword and Shield via Home. Competitive players may find this useful as they try to construct the perfect team for tournament play.
Pokémon Home is an app that will release on Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android in February. It’s a cloud-based storage system, allowing trainers to connect with Pokémon Bank and all Pokémon titles on the Switch. This way, trainers can keep all of their Pokémon safe and in one place. Players can even trade with others directly from the app.
While every Pokémon has an Ability, many have an additional Ability that they can only obtain under special circumstances. In the case of Sword and Shield, players can only find Pokémon with these Hidden Abilities in Max Raid Battles. However, not every Pokémon could access their Hidden Abilities, even if found in such a battle. Now, some of these Pokémon will have a chance at obtaining their Hidden Abilities by being transferred from previous games via Pokémon Home.
Who benefits from getting Hidden Abilities via Pokémon Home?
VGC Tournaments Stats shared an image of all the Pokémon that would get their Hidden Abilities back thanks to Home. What’s more, the tweet detailed some of the Pokémon that would benefit in competitive play with access to another Ability.
Here are the Pokemon with formerly unreleased Hidden Abilities that will become available with the release of Pokemon Home.
Most are unimpressive, but Clefairy, Clefable, Meowstic, and Liepard have all been powerful support Pokemon in past VGC formats thanks to their HAs. pic.twitter.com/wNkVVVwe9O
— VGC Tournament Stats (@vgcstats) January 28, 2020
Meowstic and Liepard both gain access to Prankster as a Hidden Ability. This Ability grants increased priority to status moves, greatly increasing the utility of these Pokémon. For example, Liepard could use Prankster to outpace and paralyze quick Pokémon by using Thunder Wave. Meanwhile, Meowstic can use Prankster Imprison to block Pokémon that know the same moves as it.
Similarly, both Clefairy and Clefable can fulfill useful support roles if they get their Hidden Abilities from Pokémon Home. Clefairy gets Friend Guard, which reduces the damage done to allies by 25%. Clefable’s Unaware allows it to ignore an opposing Pokémon’s stat changes.
As VGC Tournaments Stats noted, these Pokémon have played important parts in past VGC formats thanks to their Hidden Abilities. With Pokémon Home releasing in February, these and other Pokémon will regain these special Abilities. As a result, they could potentially regain a niche in competitive play as well.
