Shadow Pokémon Guide
What makes Shadow Pokémon different, how Purification works, and where to find each Team GO Rocket Leader's current lineup.
What's different about a Shadow Pokémon
Shadow Pokémon are caught from Team GO Rocket Grunts, Leaders and Giovanni after defeating them in battle. Compared to their normal counterpart, a Shadow Pokémon gets a boosted Attack stat and a reduced Defense stat, trading bulk for damage output — which makes well-built Shadows some of the strongest raid and PvP attackers available, at the cost of surviving hits less well. Every Shadow Pokémon also knows the Charged Move Frustration until it's Purified, and has a distinct purple particle effect and eye glow in its sprite.
Purifying a Shadow Pokémon
Purification costs Stardust and Candy (the exact amount scales with the Pokémon's rarity/CP) and permanently converts it into a normal Pokémon: Frustration is replaced with Return, its IVs are raised to a minimum floor, and its stats normalize back to their standard values. Purifying trades the Shadow's offensive boost for guaranteed high-floor IVs — useful for a collection piece or a PvP-legal build, but it removes the attack advantage that makes Shadows appealing for raids.
Where to find current Shadow Pokémon
Which species appear as Shadow Pokémon depends entirely on which Team GO Rocket Grunts, Leaders and Giovanni currently have in their lineups — and that rotates. Rather than guess at a list here, see our Team GO Rocket Lineups page for the current, regularly-checked lineup for every Leader and Giovanni, slot by slot, with counters.