I’m sure some of you reading this reckon Sylveon is the best Eeveelution. That’s the beauty of Pokemon’s weird multitype fox family: We all have our own favourites. We actually conducted a highly cerebral scientific experiment here at TheGamer not so long ago, which provided us with crucial information about how all of you ranked the Eeveelutions wrong. Sorry to burst your bubble - it was all in the name of science.
My personal Eeveelution ranking changes more often than Irish weather, which means approximately once every 30 seconds all year round. At the time of writing, it’s as follows:
- Vaporeon
- Umbreon
- Sylveon
- Espeon
- Jolteon
- Flareon
- Glaceon/Leafeon because I can’t decide which is more boring
Vaporeon and Umbreon are always numbers one and two, while Glaceon and Leafeon have been joint last for over a decade. The four in the middle regularly rotate depending on what I’m playing - Showdown? Snap? Sword & Shield? Again, though, that’s the beauty of Eeveelutions. Even our own perspectives are susceptible to constant change.
This is what makes Sylveon’s appearance in Pokemon Unite a bit disheartening. I don’t mean to say that Sylveon is broken per se - it’s just being wasted as yet another Attacker when it should clearly be a Support. Outside of my own personal opinion on how Sylveon is or isn’t any good in Unite, though, it’s important to note how it actually functions in the game, and how that in turn seems to disqualify any other Eeveelutions from joining the roster.
If you’re reading this article, I would assume you have at least a rudimentary understanding of how Unite plays, but I will offer a very brief breakdown of how evolution works just in case. Essentially, you level up in Unite by farming mobs, scoring points, killing opponents, and defeating certain enemies at specific points on the map. Obviously, not every Pokemon in the game evolves - Zeraora and Absol start and finish the match as themselves, for example - but some do. Slowpoke evolves into Slowbro at level four; Squirtle evolves into Wartortle at level five, which in turn evolves into Blastoise at level nine; and Eevee evolves into Sylveon at level four.
And there’s our problem.
While there are various ways for Eevee to evolve in mainline Pokemon, from exposing it to certain stones to choosing the time of day you train it at, evolving in Unite is extremely straightforward. This has been retained for Sylveon - there’s no gimmick, it just evolves from Eevee as soon as you hit level four. Because of this, it’s extremely unlikely that any of the other Eeveelutions will come to the game because adding them would introduce very infuriating issues.
Your first encounter with the enemy team usually happens at level three or four if you’re running top or bottom lane, which four out of five people on your team should be doing. At this point of the match, all Pokemon who evolve will likely still be in their first form - Froakie, Squirtle, Charmander, Alolan Vulpix, and so on. Eevee is identifiable as a Sylveon purely because we know that Sylveon is the only Eeveelution in the game - so, if, say, Umbreon is added down the line and picked for the same team as Sylveon, how on Earth could you tell which Eevee is which?
In a way, it’s an intriguing premise - it introduces a whole new layer of strategy where you’re not sure whether you’re dealing with an Attacker like Sylveon or hopefully-would-be Support like Umbreon. Eevee would need to maintain the same stats across all possible Eeveelutions in the spirit of fairness, but given that level four evolutions usually occur during the first teamfight, you could find yourself stuck with a Toxic/Moonlight Umbreon (please, Timi, do me this one favour) when you initially thought you were dealing with a Sylveon who is incredibly frail by comparison.
There are obviously a lot of concessions Timi could make in order to circumvent the problem of not knowing what Eevee is going to evolve into, but most of them would be unique to this specific Pokemon and are therefore a bit of a stretch. You could impose a limit that only allows one Eeveelution per team; you could introduce items or location-based prerequisites that enable enemies to tell which Eeveelution you’re gunning for; or you could just go full Pikachu and ignore pre- and post-evolution forms. For what it’s worth, I don’t agree with any of these solutions - I’m just trying to work through possible ways other Eeveelutions could be introduced to Unite without forcing everyone to play a guessing game until level four.
That being said, level four is usually achieved within what, the first minute of a match? I don’t think an unevolved Eevee is going to be a particularly overpowered wrecking ball, and pre-match cards will always inform you of how many Eeveelutions are on the enemy team. While seeing two Eevee on bot might be a little disorienting for the first 30 seconds of a match, it’s worth remembering that Greninja’s Double Team creates two copies of itself and is perfectly fine. There are ways to implement visual signposting that allows the enemy team to deduce knowledge based on Eeveelutions, but the best way to handle it is to just… do nothing. Just make them all evolve at level four and assign them different roles - Vaporeon could be a Support/All-Rounder hybrid, Flareon could be an Attacker, Jolteon could be a Speedster, and so on. Espeon is harder to place, but then again Timi has now mislabeled both Mamoswine and Sylveon in the last couple of weeks alone, so maybe it will just make it a Defender or something (in case it isn’t clear, I’m joking).
Sylveon coming to Unite suggests other Eeveelutions are off the table, although I’d love it if I was proved wrong about that. Vaporeon and Umbreon are two of my favourite ‘mons of all time - if either of them came to Unite, I’d pump a million hours into maining them. Right now, though, with all of the information we have available to us, Sylveon implies we won’t be getting any other forms of Eevee. It’s disappointing, but hey - at least it’s not Leafeon or Glaceon.