Pokémon Scarlet and Violet player ‘disowns’ their Pokémon after tragic Shiny encounter

One Pokémon player threatened to disown their Breloom after failing to catch a rare Shiny encounter in Scarlet and Violet today.

Every Shiny hunter in Pokémon knows the number one rule is to never let your Shiny faint. You need to carefully chip away at the Shiny Pokémon’s HP and put it to sleep or paralyze it to increase the catching odds. This usually isn’t a problem if you use a Pokémon with False Swipe, a move that always leaves the target with at least one health.

Despite following this process, one unlucky player accidentally killed a wild Shiny Sneasel on June 4 thanks to their Breloom’s Ability, Effect Spore.

In the video, the player had Breloom use False Swipe to get the wild Sneasel’s HP in the red. They then locked in Spore as their next move to put Sneasel to sleep, but things suddenly took a turn for the worse. When Sneasel attacked the next turn, Breloom’s ability, Effect Spore, activated and poisoned the Shiny ‘mon.

Related: 10 rarest Shinies in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

As a result, the Sneasel in question fainted from the poison before the player had a chance to throw a Poké Ball at it—leading to some serious Shiny heartbreak.

The unlucky part about the whole situation was there was really only a 3.3 percent chance of it happening.

Effect Spore only had a 10 percent chance of activating when Breloom was hit by a contact move like Sneasel’s Quick Attack. Once activated, the ability randomly inflicts the target with one of three status conditions—poison, paralysis, or sleep. Paralysis or sleep would’ve been perfect for catching the Shiny, but poison proved to be lethal.

Related: Pokémon fan shows downsides of Shiny hunting with hilarious encounter

In hindsight, this could’ve been easily prevented by the player using a different Pokémon with False Swipe. Fans in the comments suggested Zangoose or Gallade, who can also learn status moves like Thunder Wave. Alternatively, they could have changed Breloom’s ability to Poison Heal with an Ability Capsule or Technician with an Ability Patch. Either ability would’ve prevented Sneasel from being poisoned in the first place.

Saving the game beforehand, however, would’ve been the safest thing to do. If the player had saved before battling the Shiny, they could’ve restarted their Switch to reset the encounter until they were successful.

While the player jokingly threatened to release Breloom for knocking out an awesome Shiny, they ultimately acknowledged it was their own fault. All they can do now is reflect on what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future so they don’t accidentally let another Shiny slip away.