The Pokemon Sword & Shield community was stunned after a player revealed their insane luck. The Trainer managed to get a starter Pokemon even rarer than a Shiny.
In 1999, Game Freak introduced several new features in Gold & Silver to add a new level of challenge to catching Pokemon. Eight generations later, dedicated Trainers spends hundreds of hours trying to catch Shiny monsters.
A Sword & Shield player stunned the community when they managed to get a Pokemon that is even rarer than most Shinies. The lucky fan stumbled upon the feat at the very start of their game.
Pokemon can become infected with a disease called Pokerus in Sword & Shield.Pokemon Sword & Shield player gets luckiest starter ever
Introduced alongside the Shiny mechanic in Gen II, Pokerus is a virus that can infect Pokemon in your inventory. The harmless disease can spread to other ‘mon and boosts EV stats.
Player ‘Aeris_7’ was able to run into the virus only minutes into their Sword & Shield playthrough. “My Grookey caught Pokérus within the first 15 minutes of a new playthrough (had only battled Hop for the first time and a single Skwovet in the Slumbering Weald),” they said.
The Trainer uploaded a clip of their insane luck to the r/PokemonSwordAndShield subreddit. While they initially thought it was 0.00009% chance, it was actually a 0.000005% as you can’t actually get Pokerus from an NPC battle. Aeris miraculously got the rare bug after just a single encounter with a random Skwovet.
My Grookey caught Pokérus within the first 15 minutes of a new playthrough (had only battled Hop for the first time and a single Skwovet in the Slumbering Weald). About a 0.00009% chance of catching it after 2 battles (if I’ve done my math right). from PokemonSwordAndShield
The Pokemon community was blown away by the users rare encounter as it was a 3/65536 chance. One user exclaimed, “You should buy a lotto ticket. You’re so lucky!” Another wrote, “wow ive NEVER even gotten Pokerus.” A fan replied, “It’s more rare than encountering a Shiny so no wonder.”
On paper, the player’s infected Grookey might not seem as impressive as a Shiny version. But considering they were able to run into the virus with literally the first encounter they had is pretty mind-boggling.
Despite making its debut over 22 years ago, many fans seemed like they didn’t know what Pokerus is. The stat-boosting viral infection is not as popular as Shiny ‘mon, despite technically being rarer in most cases.
Interestingly, Sword & Shield’s starter ‘mon are actually Shiny-locked at the start of the game. Although players can get their incredibly rare variant by breeding later on.
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