Competitive Pokemon Players Like The Restricted Pokedex In Sword and Shield

While many fans were furious over the cuts made to the amount of Pokemon obtainable in Pokemon Sword and Shield, there is one section of the community that is relieved.

The popular competitive Pokemon battling website Smogon, has been stuck battling how to integrate Pokemon’s newest gimmick, Dynamaxing. Just one month after the release of Pokemon’s 8th generation, the community has voted to ban Dynamaxing from its 6V6 Singles format.

This decision comes after evaluating several factors and possible solutions to the steamroll potential that the feature brings to battles. But the limited Pokedex has lead to there being any debate at all about keeping Dynamax in the game.

Dynamaxing allows almost any Pokemon to increase their health and attack power immensely with little to no counters besides if the opponent Dynamaxes defensively.

In an interview with VG247, Smogon moderator Sage explains how including the entire Pokemon roster in Galar would further complicate the challenge of balancing this generation’s metagame.

Sage provides another angle of how the newest games came to define itself, however: “Other generations have been fine without a gimmick, and Generation 8 already has an identity with the massive Pokemon/Movepool cuts that ‘Dexit’ gave us.” She also mentions how having the National Dex would be even worse. Old metagame threats from previous generations such as Landorus and Kartana having the ability to Dynamax would be troublesome, and in addition to having a Mega Evolution and a Z-Move user would just result in overwhelming power creep.

With the smaller pool, players are being forced to adapt and try new Pokemon and strategies that would have not been possible if former threats were still present in the game. Gigantamax forms are one example of this as mentioned by a Video Game Championship veteran Alex Underhill.

 “The National Dex restriction is part of what is making VGC balanced as it is. It is allowing certain Pokémon that never saw the light of day to shine now, like Butterfree.”

What do you think about the competitive Pokemon scene’s reaction to the limited Pokedex? Let us know below.