Magic Guard vs Toxic Spikes.
Greetings. In one of my most recent battles, I came across a slight "contradiction" to how Magic Guard usually operates. For convenience, I will post Smogon's description of Magic Guard here:
Spikes, Stealth Rock, burn, poison, Leech Seed, hail, sandstorm, Nightmare, Bad Dreams, Jaboca Berry recoil, Rowap Berry recoil, Life Orb's 10% recoil damage, and regular recoil do no damage to this Pokémon. Struggle's recoil, however, will still damage a Magic Guard Pokémon. This Pokémon can be poisoned or burned, but it will not take any damage. The physical damage drop associated with being burned still applies. Leech Seed will neither damage a Magic Guard Pokémon nor heal its enemy. Pokemon with Magic Guard cannot activate their target's Jaboca or Rowap Berry. Pain Split works normally on Magic Guard Pokemon.
If a Magic Guard Pokemon is under the effects of Toxic poison, their Toxic counter still increases normally, even though they aren't taking damage. This means that if the Pokemon loses Magic Guard, the Toxic damage it receives is the same as it would be getting on that turn if it hadn't had Magic Guard.
Magic Guard Pokemon still take poison damage out of battle.
This Pokemon can be paralyzed, and its Speed will be reduced in that case, but it cannot be fully paralyzed.
The bolded part clearly reads that Magic Guard Pokemon
can indeed be poisoned, but
will take no damage in-battle from being poisoned. And this is, indeed, how Magic Guard usually works. However, I have witnessed somewhat of a contradiction to how Magic Guard works and perhaps other members could help test this contradiction further or perhaps see something that I'm missing or failed to account for. This contradiction involves the move Toxic Spikes. Here is the Smogon description for it:
This move lays down poison-inducing spikes on the opponent's field. If this move is used twice, the Toxic Spikes will cause toxic poison.
If the opponent uses Rapid Spin, the Toxic Spikes are removed. If a player switches in a grounded Poison-type Pokemon while Toxic Spikes are on that player's side of the field, the Toxic Spikes are removed, even if Safeguard is in effect or the Pokemon is Baton Passed a Substitute.
Toxic Spikes do not affect Flying- and Steel-type Pokémon, or Pokémon with the ability Levitate. If Gravity is in effect, Flying and Levitating Pokemon are hit by Toxic Spikes upon switching in. If a Flying or Levitating Pokemon is holding an Iron Ball, it is hit by Toxic Spikes upon switching in. If a Flying or Levitating Pokemon is Baton Passed an Ingrain, it is hit by Toxic Spikes upon switching in.
If a Pokemon is Baton Passed a Substitute, it is not poisoned by Toxic Spikes. If Safeguard is in effect when a Pokemon switches in, it is not poisoned by Toxic Spikes.
Toxic Spikes do not activate the ability Synchronize.
Judging by the descriptions of the two moves, the conclusion is that Toxic Spikes should poison a Pokemon with Magic Guard. However, I have found exactly the opposite to be true, I have found that Magic Guard perhaps does guard against being poisoned by Toxic Spikes! Now it should be noted that this is actually a disadvantage to Magic Guard Pokemon, since a Pokemon with Magic Guard would, under normal circumstances, love to be poisoned to avoid getting another status put onto it.
My evidence is this Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTGTk97I4uE . It was a battle I had a few days back. In this battle, Toxic Spikes are clearly applied to my field (at 1:44, for convenience). I did not Rapid Spin them away, nor did I send out a Poison-type Pokemon to remove them. However, when my Clefable with the Magic Guard ability (at 4:39, and again at 6:03, 7:58) is sent out, it does
not get poisoned by a result of the Toxic Spikes! There are three possibilities that I see:
1) Since under most cases, Pokemon immune to Spikes are also immune to Toxic Spikes, it may be the case that Magic Guard Pokemon are immune to Toxic Spikes as well.
2) It could be perhaps be a glitch that since Stealth Rock was also in effect, Magic Guard is programmed to protect against entry hazards. In that case, perhaps a Pokemon with Magic Guard is only protected from Toxic Spikes when another entry hazard is present.
3) Finally, it could simply have been an unexplained glitch that activated for an unknown reason. It could be the case that a glitch either somehow protected Clefable, or somehow removed the Toxic Spikes before Clefable was sent out (unfortunately, there was not another opportunity for the rest of a video for a Pokemon of mine to be poisoned by the Toxic Spikes).
Any thoughts about this matter would be helpful, thank you.