Pokémon Sword and Shield: How to Evolve Nincada into No. 106 Shedinja

Need some quick help evolving Nincada into Shedinja?

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Started off as a sports writer with a focus on football, ice hockey, boxing, and American football. After leaving RealSport, I diversified my writing substantially, kept with sport, but also learned much more heavily into pop culture, iGaming, travel, business, tech, and especially gaming. Later, I co-founded Outsider Gaming, was the primary writer and editor-in-chief, and helped to train and bring on the writing talents who also had a passion for gaming. Now, I’m writing everything and anything, from sports to gaming, SEO-optimised content to reviews and previews.

Published on: Nov 30, 2019 | Updated on: Mar 22, 2023

Pokémon Sword and Shield may not have the entire National Dex at its disposal, but there are still 72 Pokémon that don’t simply evolve at a certain level. With Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, a few evolution methods have been altered from previous games, and, of course, there are some new Pokémon to evolve through increasingly peculiar and specific ways.

Here, you’ll find out where to find Nincada and how to evolve Nincada into Shedinja and Ninjask.

Where to find Nincada in Pokémon Sword and Shield

The small bug-ground type Pokémon Nincada has been around since Generation III (Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald) and has always been able to stifle players with its unusual evolution tree.

Nincada can be found in Pokémon Sword and Shield along Route 5 and in the Wild Area at South Lake Miloch and West Lake Axwell. The unassuming Pokémon will be easy enough to catch, but be sure to read on in this article before levelling up your Nincada.

How to evolve Nincada into Shedinja in Pokémon Sword and Shield

Nincada’s evolution into Shedinja – if you can even call it that – is very peculiar but doesn’t require any particular location, stone, time of day, or movement to achieve.

Once Nincada is in your team, and you’re setting out with the purpose of evolving it into Shedinja, you must make sure that there is a space in your team. This means that your Pokémon team can only have a maximum of five members.

To achieve this, simply open your box and move a Pokémon from your team into a blank space within your box. If you catch a Pokémon in the meantime, be sure to put it into a box so that the empty space isn’t filled when Nincada hits level 20.

When Nincada reaches level 20, it will evolve. On your screen, you’ll see Nincada go through the evolution animation, but in Pokémon Sword and Shield, you will then see a Ninjask – Nincada’s primary evolution.

But don’t despair: simply go into your Pokémon team and you will find a Shedinja sitting in what was the empty team slot. Shedinja is said to be the ghost-inhabited shell of a Pokémon – quite possibly Shedinja’s shell if the Pokémon undergoes some form of metamorphosis en route to evolving into Ninjask.

So, when you evolve Nincada, you get both Ninjask and Shedinja. Shedinja is a unique Pokémon in the game, besides how it evolves, due to it only having 1HP. This is not a disadvantage, however, due to the bug-ghost Pokémon’s ability Wonder Guard, which means that it is only harmed by super-effective damage – via attack, condition effect, or weather effect. So, only fire, flying, rock, ghost, and dark-type moves will harm Shedinja.

There you have it: your Nincada just evolved into a Shedinja. You now have a bug-ghost type Pokémon which, if up against a foe that doesn’t have any of Shedinja’s five weaknesses sitting on in its move list, can attack without fear of taking damage.

Want to evolve your Pokemon?

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