I’ve been thinking, assuming that Legendary Pokémon will be catchable, that means that Birds, Beasts, Tower Duo, Creation Trio, Genies, and Island Guardians will have their HA avalible for use in Cartridge Formats in years, with notably the Genies and Island Guardians not being avalible since Dream Radar as well as being the first time Telephaty is avalible on the Island Guardians.
I very much doubt they'll do this -- they'll probably all have fixed abilities, much like boss Mewtwo IIRC could not have Unnerve. Which is a shame, because Lugia and Ho-oh are pretty much balanced around their hidden abilities which have never been legal in competitive play, and allowing them could be a very nice shake-up for the inevitable Restricted Cup.
Unseen Fist assures Urshifu's attacks that make direct contact do damage, even if the target uses Protect. I'm going to guess it also ignores Abilities
I don't see any reason to make this assumption. These have always been distinct effects, and I don't think there are any effects which have done both outside of No Guard.
The more likely "unwritten effect" is that contact moves ignore Substitute, since most Protect-ignoring moves do. In short, Urshifu will negate most of the current ways to stall out Dynamax. With it being confirmed to be legal in VGC (and thus presumably 570-600 BST), it could make things very interesting. Assuming they are identical besides typing (which they so far appear to be), which one do we think will be used more? I reckon Rapid Strike, because it can benefit from rain and doesn't have that quad weakness to Fairy.
Overall, I like Urshifu a lot. It feels like another iteration of what they were going for mechanically with Hoopa.
Something interesting I'm wondering about: Will the IoA mons be considered parts of the Galar dex? Or will they be in some weird "in the region but not in the actual Pokedex" limbo like the Mirage Islands/Battle Zone/Island Scan Pokemon?
If the former, this'll be the Luxray family's first time in a regional Pokedex since DPP!
If I recall correctly, the new areas have been confirmed to have their own Pokedexes.
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On the subject of the Regis...
1) The continued absence of any mention of Regigigas makes me think they're going to do something interesting with it. I wonder if they'll get rid of Slow Start somehow? Either by having the new Regis unlock something else as a Hidden Ability, or by giving it a Galarian form which either dispenses with the deterimental ability concept or has a different downside-ability. The latter seems more likely to me, unless they want to add Regigigas to the usual competition banlist.
2) What if they *don't* have different stat spreads to the other titans? What if those 200 base stats that Regice and Regirock get put in offensive stats, or we see something close? Even if they remain super slow, that would make them very threatening, and it could be balanced by the fact that both new titans are of types with common immunities.
3) I'm pleased that we're getting proper puzzle areas for the Regis. Aside from... the Regis in ORAS... they've been half-assing legendary encounters since gen 6. Too bad the other dens still seem quite lazy, but I can appreciate that the sheer number of legendaries we can find makes it somewhat impractical to design encounters for them all, and it's more important than usual to have them all there because so many people are opting not to bother with previous gen transfers and/or don't have previous gen games. I really hope they don't repeat USUM by having the encountered legendaries be basically randomised; ORAS's setup at least made it practical to encounter a specific legendary that you were looking for.
