Galarian Ponyta Officially Announced as a Pokemon Shield Exclusive

Last week’s 24-hour Pokemon Sword and Shield livestream showed off a new ‘mon that The Pokemon Company only just officially confirmed: Galarian Ponyta, a Pokemon Shield exclusive.

Despite looking like My Little Ponyta, Galarian Ponyta isn’t a cutesy Fairy type at all. In fact, it’s a cutesy Psychic type known as the “Unique Horn” Pokemon. Yes, a unicorn.

We don’t know what kind of move pool Galarian Ponyta will have, what happens when it evolves into Galarian Rapidash, or if it’s one of the few ‘mon that can Gigantamax. However, we do know that along with the older ability Run Away, it has a special new ability called Pastel Veil.

Pastel Veil keeps Ponyta and its allies from being poisoned, and it comes into effect as soon as Galarian Ponyta enters the field.

You’d be forgiven if you missed seeing these glimpses last week. After a while, the stream seemed like it was actually The Impidimp Show, with his special guests Morelull, Morelull, and Morelull. But the whole thing was meant as a big lead-in to revealing this new Shield-exclusive Ponyta, the counterpart to last month’s Sword-exclusive Pokemon Sirfetch’d.

Despite Sword and Shield launching in just over a month, we still don’t know a whole lot about what to expect, apart from the new Team Yell and a few other details.

That said, these are certainly shaping up to be exciting entries in the Pokemon franchise.