Published on June 11th, 2013 | by Firestorm
Nintendo Confirms Fairy Type for Pokémon X and Y at E3
For all those waiting for the reveal of a new type for Pokémon, Nintendo President & CEO Satoru Iwata has just confirmed that Pokémon X & Y will introduce a new type: Fairy. So far the only confirmed Pokémon of this type is Sylveon. We’ll have the trailer in this space once it’s up. A Pokémon X and Y roundtable later today should reveal more on this type!
Update: Jigglypuff, Gardevoir, Sylveon, and Marril are now Fairy Types!
Update 2: Trailer added.
Update 3: Jigglypuff is Fairy / Normal, Gardevoir is Fairy / Psychic, and Marril is Fairy / Water.
Update 4: Fairy is super-effective against Dragon.
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About the Author
Firestorm is one of the co-founders of Nugget Bridge and the Community Manager for eSports Tournament Platform Battlefy. He has been playing Pokémon since 1999, competitively since 2007, and attending tournaments since 2010. He lives in Vancouver, Canada with a degree in Interactive Art & Technology + Communications. You can follow him on Twitter at @rushanshekar.
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just want to encourage everyone who hasn’t voiced concerns with the new type to speak up, as i plan to write a fun little article about it this weekend. using my incredibly nerdy knowledge of the fae folk ( fairy folk. did you know fairy is a collective term for a group of sub-species, and not in it’s own definition an actual creature? just like dragons! poor altaria
) i hope to clear up a few things, namely why “non-fairy” looking pokemon are being given the type, what the fairy type will actually mean and why i think they’ve done a pretty good job with the type in general. i’ll hopefully be able to go through every post and answer some questions with what little knowledge we actually have. and yes, i’ll be talking about why fairy is a better type than whatever light or anything else would be. you don’t have to agree with me but i think it might shed some light on the reasoning, because everyone seems to be a bit confused (and a few particular people seem to be struggling just to find something bad to say about it). i have quite a bit to say so it could be interesting!
but i’m going to ignore zach’s post because his argument is really stupid
Maybe we will see an evolution to Mawile as a strong Steel/Fairy type and it just dawned on me that Altaria could well be turned into a Dragon/Fairy going completely from its looks anyway …
Im still not liking the concept on the metagame shifting infavour of Steel types (i think the balance is good already) and im one of those people who dont think dragons are overpowered and i agree with kingofkongs as i have also noticed a reduction in the usage of dragon types already
Glaceon is my favorite pokemon, but I would never use her in an actual tournament. I don’t care if this new one would be usable, she’d be my in-game star <3
I like the idea of a new type. We haven’t had one in a long while, and it will be fun learning how to deal with it, and all of the new pokemon in the new gen as a community. We always whine before something new, and then get used to it (if not like it) and move on.
I’m a little worried about Pokemon amie raising crit and dodge chances though. Please tell me that’s only ingame.
Well, to counter the argument that “the metagame is already balanced” and “dragons are not too overpowered”, I would say that the purpose of fairy is not just to hurt dragons but to level the type playingfield. A lot of types never see the light of day in competitive play e.g. poison and possibly give a defense boost to psychic and fire types while further hurting fighting types.
Also, I agree with feathers against the fairy-type haters: light type is way too cheesy and boring. Fairy adds like a cool mythical component and it’s kind of exciting to imagine some of what the dual types will look like e.g. dragon/fairy, dark/fairy or a steel/fairy not named mawile (maybe an evolution?)
Also, I hope Milotic gets fairy so it’s celestial beauty will match it’s viciousness in battle.
Just because a type doesnt gain a weakness doesnt mean members of that type will suddenly be used for their defensive prowess. This also doesnt encourgage more usage of poison types, since it makes the already good steel tyoes even better. All this means is that nidoking might be able to use its STAB on some sets, and even that seems unlikely.
This isnt a complete rehaul of the type chart, its just one introduction. Hopefully we get a good competitive addition like team preview to help keep the game interesting. Also getting rid of freeze because its stupid
Or just nerf it to make it similar to Sleep.
If Blissey and Chansey become part fairy type, they could completely wall dragon types (except for Garchomp who could still spam earthquake) especially if they’re immune to dragon, not resistant.
If they are going to do this, they at least need to up the percentage to freeze. Or make a move similar to hypnosis where you have 70 (give or take 10) percent chance to freeze. I do agree that they need to make an organized timer so you can’t stay frozen indefinitely. I don’t agree that they should remove completely
EDIT: Blissey/Chansey wouldn’t completely wall dragons….they all learn other type moves too
Well, my jimmies are still sort of rustled, and now I’m mostly mad at the confusing translations given by the Japanese. In ReconX’s status I figured out that Fighting was supposed to represent the hero type. While I can see this, it also very much confuses me (because I think of fighters as being… well… neutral in the good vs evil archetype).
I feel also sort of disappointed. In the sort of sense that I had a lot of head-canon logic built up about how logical adding light type would be (the number of pokemon with healing moves and light being mostly the good healing type and a weakness to poison due to the fact that sickness is the opposite of health, how dragons were smited by knights who have always been the “good guys” in bedtime stories and whatnot, etc etc etc). Overhyping oneself with headcanon is never a good thing and can only lead to despair.
To those who say “light type is really cheesy” you honestly don’t think that fairy sounds cheesier? To Feathers, who made the argument that light is a trite name for a type, what about dark? If light type would’ve been cliché where’s the complaints about dark?
But whatever. Arguments… I never like having them. They’re stupid really. And you know what, I’ve had a nice chance to breathe in this nice reality:
I can understand the butthurt rage that might come with the awkward place this apparently feminine type naming might leave you in a social life, but you’re already playing a game that always has and always will be marketed to the young with its colorful friendly creatures and people. I guess this leaves you with two options: you can “grow up” and stop playing the game, have a rich, rewarding adult life with a lovely moment of nostalgia in that game of pokémon before it was ruined by the fairy type; or you can embrace this interesting new twist in our game–a change that doesn’t happen often, and might have interesting consequences. As for me, my choice is clear:
i was hoping pball would post because his comments are definitely things i want to talk about. glad you’ve warmed up a bit though, i recall you saying on irc that you would stop playing if fairy was a type (nobody should say that because it sounds dumber than fairy being a new type) so it’s cool to see that even though you don’t really like it that you’re still going to give it a chance.
fairy type i hope to give you many, many more chances from these fine nugget folk
I for one am delighted by a new type. The idea of a shake up in the type charts is exciting, seeing some things become better and some worse, hopefully meeting in the middle. All we need now is some base stat boosts to older stuff to counter the power creep of the last couple of generations and we’re golden. Fairy is a much better idea than most suggestions (light, sound, God-knows what other horrific abominations some people have come up with) and most of the non-competitive negative reaction is the assumption it’s all sunshine and rainbows like Tinkerbell and the question of why Fairies beat Dragons despite magic beating dragons in most other RPGs.
If it does mean that Steel types really do get used more, which I think is unlikely because the only two that actually use the STAB are Metagross and Scizor and they’re already up there, it just means the Fire types can step up (especially with that Fairy resistance) and that’s fine by me. And then people would stop the Fire types with Rain and then there would be an endless cycle of the metagame until the next set of big changes which is always the case anyway.
Honestly the whole “Fairy types will make this game sound girly when I talk about it in public” argument (or similar arguments about it sounding feminine) is total bs.
First off, you shouldn’t really bring up Pokemon in social situations anyway, unless you’re with your friends or people you know that like Pokemon. Second, nobody told you you had to use a Fairy type, and I don’t think it’ll be necessary (in a competitive sense) unless it resists or is immune to Dragon. Third: this is still the exact same game you’ve like for, I don’t know, how many years now? Pokemon’s not all of a sudden going to get ruined unless Fairy breaks the type chart in half. I feel like GF is going to balance things pretty well, they’ve been tending to this series for almost 20 years now, they know their Grimer. Fourth: feathers gave a good rundown on the Fairy mythos, which GF is probably basing the type off of rather than a five-year-old girl’s birthday party theme.
I used to not like the idea of “Fairy” as a type name (during the rumor phase), and I still think “Magic” is more accurate. But whatever, right? I’ll still be around next VGC season, and it will take way more than this to make me quit Pokemon. The only real way Fairy will upset me (aside from possibly being broken) is if awful crap like Wigglytuff becomes mainstream with no other logic behind its use than “LOL it can kill draginzz now, it should be good!”
/rant
You know, I didn’t even think about the weaknesses it probably will add. It actually would be nice to seriously hurt Cress, and especially others like Blissey with Steel and Poison, or whatever the other alleged weaknesses are. It could possibly do more harm to them than good.
Honestly, I get this whole “it balances the type chart” deal, but I really think GF could have used a different name for the type (LIKE LIGHT TYPE!). Also it adds a fantasy element to the game that doesn’t need to be there, considering pokemon is more elemental (fire, grass, water, electric, etc). In terms of whether or not Light type makes sense, I ask do Dark types make sense? I’m Japanese but I don’t know yams about how “fighting is good and dark is evil”. It’s pokemon, not Dragonball Z!!! I’m with pball0010 and Zach in their argument against fairy types.
the following types are not elemental:
bug, normal, flying, fighting, psychic, dragon
the following types are a fantasy element in a fantastical, fictional world:
psychic, dragon, fairy
they can’t use light type the way we would do light and dark, because of the different meanings in Japan that birch already outlined. light type would also be a bit harder to justify I think, what would weaknesses be? Just dark? Light doesn’t do anything for dragons.
though no matter what they call it, the reasons it exists are what actually matter and not the name.
The Dark type makes no sense because it’s originally the “evil” type. That’s a clear contradiction to generic NPCs usually claiming that there are no good or evil Pokémon by themselves.
/edit: Extending that, why is Dark even weak to Bug? Grass and Psychic are obvious, but why Dark?
i hate fairies because it’s a really girly thing to pick tbh. they should have picked something like knight type to fight dragons. or slayer type or something.
I think I’ve already said this once, but restating this because Feathers is bringing it up again: My headcannon wanted light to be strong against dragons (because knights slayed dragons and are considered light or “good”) and wanted light to be the healing type (and as a result, weak to poison). It would’ve cleared up at least a bit of the patchiness in the type scheme AND made sense. At least to me…
you guys are seriously a bunch of babies. you play pokemon ffs. why are you so worried about how you look playing a game that involves a fairy type. THE GAME YOU PLAY HAS A CUTE ELECTRIC MOUSE AS ITS MASCOT.
Its just a arceusbidoof name. Grow up seriously.
also those people talking about how steel becomes OP. Last time I checked there has been NO confirmation about steel being good against fairies. as far as i know all we know about this fairy type is that its SE vs dragon. everything else is pure speculation.
I have a problem with this.
THE FAIRY POKEMON AREN’T CUTE ENOUGH TO BE FAIRY TYPE. I THINK I WOULD HAVE RATHER JUST HAVE HAD A CUTE TYPE WITH CUTE POKEMON INSTEAD.
Just a few thoughts, now that fairy has been confirmed.
-Moonblast is a fairy type attack -> Moon related things being fairy type -> Cresselia is the Lunar Pokemon -> Cresselia is now Fairy Type?
-Fairy type better actually have some sort of decent attacks to use. It would be pretty silly to make it super effective against dragon, but have its strongest (or most accessable strong) attacks be a measly 70 power.
-Not sure why you’d want to make it supposedly Steel weak when it is a type introduced to try to balance things. Steel is already a prevailent type due to its many resistances, and Steel-type attacks are used by said steel-types already. Why make steel better?
-As long as they do some sort of Ice/Fairy legendary I’m okay. That would be the strongest.
Look, you play pokemon. And so do i. If anything the last thing you should worry about is fairies being introduced. Also be glad that pokemon is trying to balance out dragons and im pretty sure most of us if not all had very bad experiences with dragons.
I’m just mad it’s not Magical Girl type ok.
Also, I think the leak is true (as I have for some time) but playtesting isn’t something that gets finished 8 months in advance so I think there’s a high chance that Game Freak will see what being weak to steel would do for Fairy and act accordingly.
oh my gosh
tinkerbell drank the poison and almost died
it makes perfect sense now!!
Leave cress alone, i dont want more weaknesses to mess up my perfect vgc tank
Maybe not technically elemental, but they pertain to real world things. Bugs are real. Normal types are basically woodland animals and those are real. Birds are real, and wind is elemental. Martial artists are real. Psychics are real. Dragons are very prominent in many cultures, so I really don’t count them as fantasy creatures. Overall, fairies are pretty much the only fantasy type out there.
I’m sorry, but I still don’t get this.
I’m Japanese but I’ve never heard of fighting being the “good” type or thing in Japanese culture. Fighting is used for self defense in Japan (Judo, Jujitsu, Karate). Dark is pretty universal (dark=bad) even though dark type pokemon aren’t necessarily bad, as Fatum said.
it doesn’t matter if you’re japanese and don’t get it, i’m trying to explain that fighting types are not fighting types in japan. they are probably better explained as being “hero” type there, which is basically light type. light/dark is not used to describe good/evil, and as birch already said, dark types are actually “evil” type in japan. this is why fighting is super effective against dark (or i guess you could say hero type is super effective against evil type). it has nothing to do with culture or literal martial arts, its the meaning of the words. the more you know!
it might be worth mentioning the digimon dawn/dusk games as well, wherein they have holy type as opposed to light type, since it makes more sense in the japanese interpretation.
lol of course they are fantasy creatures, they don’t exist in anything except folklore and fairytales, and you will definitely find more stories about the fae folk than you will about individual dragons. hopefully i can go more in depth about this in my article but there are a lot of familiar stories to sort through and i don’t want to get in too deep
Your whole argument against the new type being called fairy is just you generalizing what you think is “fantasy” and claiming Pokemon doesn’t need additional “fantasy” elements because its already primarily an elemental based game, except FWGE is only half of the type chart (I guess you could get steel in there, but I’m not sure if the Japanese originally meant steel as in natural metal or steel as in machines). Then you kinda tried to justify “light” as a typing by asking if dark makes sense as a typing. I think someone already previous mentioned that the whole cliche light vs dark deal has a slightly different meaning for Japanese folks, but you are Japanese so-
EDIT: I just saw your post on how fairies are fantasy and dragons are not. LOL.
I’m indifferent about the new type and what they chose to call it, but a new type is a new type is a new type and depending on what type effectiveness, new moves, and what new Pokemon are released (not just fairy types) will definitely breathe some new life into the game, especially if they keep the format the way it is with just gen 6 additions.
Ok, so just to clarify what we have so far thanks to our theories:
Fairy is Strong against Dragon because Dragons are normally killed in Fairytales. (Can’t remember where I saw this first, lol).
Fairy is Weak to Poison because Tinkerbell nearly died from Poison in Peter Pan. (Mattj can have credit for that).
All we need now is why Fairy would be Weak to Steel, why Fire and Psychic would resist Fairy Attacks, why Fairy would be immune to Dragon (if it is), why Fairy would damage Dark and Fighting for Super Effective Damage (these 2 I’m on the edge about since Fairy Wind from Gardevoir did 1/2 to Hydreigon, then again, depends on Base Power) and what Fairy resists and why.