The Pokemon Trading Card Game Says Goodbye To Fairy Types

The Pokemon Company has outlined a few changes coming to its trading card game with the introduction of Pokemon Sword and Shield. Among these changes--which include alterations to attributes, stats, and more--is the removal of the Fairy Pokemon type, which is said to go into effect on February 21.

The company announced that "the Fairy-type, which was introduced in the [Pokemon X and Y] series, will no longer be supported in the Sword and Shield series." As such, all Fairy types seen in the Pokemon games will be "generally" represented as Psychic-type in the trading card game. Further, Poison-types are now Darkness-types instead of Psychic-types.

Other alterations to the trading card game come in the form of resistances and weaknesses. Pokemon from the Sword and Shield series will have a resistance of -30 instead of -20. Weaknesses remain uncharged but matchups have shifted a little. These include Water-types being weak against Lightning instead of Grass, Psychic-types losing to Darkness instead of Psychic, and Darkness-types being weak against Grass instead of Fighting. The Pokemon Company said these changes are meant to "maintain a balance among types."

Also starting on February 21, the same day the Sword and Shield cards become legal for tournament play, is a minor adjustment to the first turn. In addition to preventing the player who goes first from attacking on the first turn, a rule introduced during the X and Y series, the player who goes first will now be unable to play a Supporter card on the first turn. The Pokemon Company said these changes should "make it less advantage[ous] to go first" and hopes they "result in interesting choices in both gameplay and deck building."

Nintendo recently wrapped up a Pokemon-centered Direct, which contained 20 minutes of new information on Pokemon coming to Sword and Shield, a release date for the cloud-based storage service Pokemon Home, and more. Further, Sword and Shield is getting paid DLC expansions that will include additional Pokedexes to complete, new areas to explore, and more.