With Pokémon Sword & Shield now out, some players are going to the extreme in order to add the rarest Pokémon to their collections, including Twitch streamer Hyoon, who spent a lot of time hatching egg after egg in the search for a Shiny Ponyta. A total of 801 eggs later, she finally had one.
A big draw for viewers lies in showcasing unique and rare Pokémon that streamers do not have, and for good reason. Many of these Pokémon are exceedingly difficult to acquire, and it mostly comes down to luck, perseverance, and a lot of free time.
These Shiny Pokémon are not in any way better than normal Pokémon in Pokémon Sword & Shield. They do not have better stats or different move sets to make them more desirable for clearing content or for the competitive scene. However, they are highly sought after because of their unique colors and rare aesthetic.
The odds of finding a Shiny Pokémon are very low, so it's pretty uncommon. They were originally known as alternate coloration or rare coloration and were initially called Color Pokémon in other games. Shiny was only used as a descriptor because of the sparkling sound effect and animation that was seen in earlier games in the series.
Some Shiny Pokémon look similar to their normal versions, such as Glaceon or Pichu, but others are remarkably different, and like Ponyta, are often the most sought after. Rather than having the standard orange flames, Shiny Ponyta and Rapidash have blue flames and are gray. Meanwhile, Galarian Shiny Ponyta are white and blue.
Hyoon is not the only streamer seeking Shiny Pokémon. Instead, she is one of many. Recently, Twitch streamer Jeremy “DisguisedToast” Wang promised his viewers that if he could not capture a Shiny Wooloo at by the end of a 15-hour stream, he would purchase and hand out 1,000 Twitch subscriptions at random to his viewers. The time passed, and DisguisedToast made good on his word, as he was sadly unable to find the rare Pokémon.
As time goes on, we will no doubt be seeing more streamers showing off their rare finds, which is exciting to see since most players are too busy experiencing the game to try to capture hundreds of the same Pokémon over and over.