Pokemon Sword & Shield community pained by player’s tragic Shiny mistake

Brent Koepp

A Pokemon Sword & Shield player went viral online after sharing their tragic mistake which left them running away from a Shiny Legendary ‘mon in The Crown Tundra. 

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In October, Pokemon Sword & Shield got its second major DLC, The Crown Tundra. The update greatly expanded the Galar region’s map and brought a handful of past Legendaries to the eighth generation RPG.

Fans of the game were left horrified after a player accidentally ruined their encounter with a Shiny variant of one of these rare creatures. The community called the Trainer’s mistake “cursed” after it went viral online.

Pokemon Sword & Shield player runs away from shiny Staryu.
Mistakes with Shiny Pokemon are always painful to watch.

Pokemon Crown Tundra shiny encounter goes horribly wrong

First introduced in Gen II’s Gold & Silver, Shinies are extremely rare variants of Pokemon which sees the character with alternate colors and extremely boosted stats. In Sword & Shield, the rates for catching one are as low as 1/4096 encounters.

A player went viral after stumbling across both a Legendary and a shiny. Unfortunately ‘Berb-‘ didn’t realize what they had encountered, and accidentally ran away from the special Virizion before realizing their major mistake.

“This is why you pay attention while shiny hunting kids,” they exclaimed. The Redditor then posted an image of their Cofagrigus facing off against the Gen V monster with text on the screen that read “You got away safely!”

Players reacted to the Trainer’s slip-up, and were pained by their misfortune. One user wrote “This actually hurt me to see it.” Other Pokemon fans joked that the image was horrifying such as someone who exclaimed “THIS IS CURSED.”

According to the player, it was the “cinematic cutaways” that tripped them up. They also later admitted that they couldn’t hear the Shiny’s sparkle noise as they had the sound turned off.

The tragic situation inspired other Trainers to share their own heartbreaking stories. “In Ultra Sun & Moon, I was full odds no shiny charm hunting latios and I got it in less that 200 resets. I got it down to 1hp and just needed a tanky pokemon to stall so I sent out my tyranitar and then remembered it had sand stream for an ability,” one fan wrote.

While Crown Tundra made it easier than ever to catch Shiny Legendaries with Dynamax Adventure mode, the user’s encounter was with Virizion, who is a special encounter Pokemon in the overworld.

If nothing else, the Trainer’s story can serve as a reminder to always pay attention to your battles. You never know when you are going to stumble across an extremely rare Shiny – even if the odds are low.

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