Swirlix Guide: Cute, Sweet, and Hard To Beat

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Swirlix, the cotton candy Pokémon, is a Fairy-type Pokémon introduced in Gen 6, and it is the pre-evolution of Slurpuff. Swirlix is based on cotton candy, also known as Fairy Floss, and that’s where its Fairy-type comes from. It is said that Swirlix only eats sweet things, and it has to eat at least its weight in sweets or else it will get furious.

Swirlix is small, round, and full of white fluff. It has two red eyes with big white pupils, two small ears at the top of its head, and its tongue is usually coming out of its mouth. It also has a big tail and two little paws, which makes us think it is probably based on a little pup.

This can be backed by the fact that its behavior is goofy-like, like a baby Pokémon or a dog pup. Swirlix’s fur smells like cotton candy, and it is really sticky. In fact, it uses sticky threats to tangle up its rivals when it is battling.

Swirlix’s name comes from Swirl and the deformation of the word Licks, probably because of its tongue. Swirlix Summary of Appearances in Pokémon Versions and Media (Games, Anime, Movies)

In the games, you can find Swirlix:

Swirlix

  • X & Y: in Pokémon X you can find Swirlix in Route 7 and in a Fairy-type Friend Safari, but in Pokémon Y you can find it only in a Fairy-type Friend Safari or trading it from Pokémon X.
  • Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon: Unobtainable, but you can have it if you use the Pokémon Bank.
  • Sword and Shield: You can only get it in Sword; in Route 5, Glimwood Tangle, Giant’s Mirror and in Stony Wilderness. If you want it in Shield, you have to trade it.

A group of five Swirlix appeared for the first time in the anime in A Battle By Any Other Name! When they attacked Serena and its Fennekin because Swirlix thought they stole the Swirlix’s berries. Later, Team Rocket appeared with the berries, and the Swirlix’s group left Serena and her companion alone.

After that, Swirlix made many minor appearances throughout Kalos Adventure, mostly being part of a trainer’s team.

In the manga, the only registered appearance that a Swirlix has was in a frame where it flew away when Xerneas and Yveltal landed on Vaniville Town. Swirlix has 5 different cards in the TCG, 4 common in the XY, Phantom Forces, Cosmic Eclipse, and in Chilling Reign sets, and an uncommon card in the Generations set.

Swirlix Evolution Line: When Does Swirlix Evolve?

Swirlix will evolve into Slurpuff when it gets traded when holding a Whipped Dream. Slurpuff doesn’t evolve.

Swirlix Stats

Swirlix is such an interesting Pokémon. Despite having decent HP and Defense stats, you can make good use of its Special Attack and its Speed, primarily because of its hidden ability; Unburden. You can use Swirlix in NFE (Not Fully Evolved) or even in LC (Little Cup); it can work in both tiers perfectly.

Let’s take a look at its abilities since one of them is the core of our strategy with Swirlix:

Abilities

Swirlix can have the following abilities:

  • Sweet Veil: This ability prevents Swirlix from falling asleep. That means you can’t use Rest on Swirlix.
  • Unburden (Hidden Ability): Unburden makes Swirlix 2x faster when it uses or loses its held item. This ability doesn’t get active if you change your item with your rivals or your companions. Swirlix will lose the ability if it gets out of the battle.

Natures

The idea with Swirlix is to make it bulky if you want it to be a Wall or make it quickly if you want it to be a Sweeper. Knowing that, we can do a strategy with the following natures:

  • Timid (Increases Speed, reduces Attack)
  • Hasty (Increases Speed, reduces Defense)
  • Jolly (Increases Speed, reduces Special Attack)
  • Naive (Increases Speed, reduces Special Defense)

We recommend only using Timid since we will need the Defense that Swirlix can lose with Hasty, the Special attack that will lose with Jolly, and the Special Defense we can lose with Naive.

  • Bold (Increases Defense, reduces Attack)
  • Impish (Increases Defense, reduces Special Attack)
  • Relaxed (Increases Defense, reduces Speed)
  • Lax (Increases Defense, reduces Special Defense)

We recommend using Bold for the same reason explained before, we will need the Speed, the Special Attack, and the Special Defense.

Stats

Swirlix has the following stats.

  HP Attack Defense Sp. Atk Sp. Def Speed
Base Stats 62 48 66 59 57 49
Favorable Nature 328 214 254 238 234 216

As you can see, Swirlix has 341 base points, which isn’t bad at all; that’s why Swirlix can be flexible with various types of strategies. Swirlix is pretty balanced, we can’t say it has a good start, but we can highlight the fact that its Speed and Attack lack the most.

Every time you defeat a Swirlix, it will give you 1 EV in Defense.

Moves list per level (Gen 8)

Swirlix can learn the following moves by leveling up:

Level Move Type Category Power Accuracy PP
1 Tackle Normal Physical 40 100% 35
1 Sweet Scent Normal Status 100% 20
3 Play Nice Normal Status —% 20
6 Fairy Wind Fairy Special 40 100% 30
9 Aromatherapy Grass Status —% 5
12 Draining Kiss Fairy Special 50 100% 10
15 Fake Tears Dark Status 100% 20
18 Round Normal Special 60 100% 15
21 String Shot Bug Status 95% 40
24 Cotton Spore Grass Status 100% 40
27 Energy Ball Grass Special 90 100% 10
30 Wish Normal Status —% 10
33 Play Rough Fairy Physical 90 90% 10
36 Cotton Guard Grass Status —% 10
39 Endeavor Normal Physical 100% 5

Moves list per TM/TR (Gen 8)

Swirlix can learn the following moves using TM/TRs:

TM/TR (GEN VIII) Move Type Category Power Accuracy PP
TM17 Light Screen Psychic Status —% 30
TM19 Safeguard Normal Status —% 25
TM21 Rest Psychic Status —% 10
TM23 Thief Dark Physical 60 100% 25
TM24 Snore Normal Special 50 100% 15
TM25 Protect Normal Status —% 10
TM29 Charm Fairy Status 100% 20
TM31 Attract Normal Status 100% 15
TM33 Rain Dance Water Status —% 5
TM34 Sunny Day Fire Status —% 5
TM39 Facade Normal Physical 70 100% 20
TM41 Helping Hand Normal Status —% 20
TM47 Fake Tears Dark Status 100% 20
TM76 Round Normal Special 60 100% 15
TM87 Draining Kiss Fairy Special 50 100% 10
TR02 Flamethrower Fire Special 90 100% 15
TR04 Surf Water Special 90 100% 15
TR08 Thunderbolt Electric Special 90 100% 15
TR11 Psychic Psychic Special 90 100% 10
TR17 Amnesia Psychic Status —% 20
TR20 Substitute Normal Status —% 10
TR26 Endure Normal Status —% 10
TR27 Sleep Talk Normal Status —% 10
TR49 Calm Mind Psychic Status —% 20
TR65 Energy Ball Grass Special 90 100% 10
TR90 Play Rough Fairy Physical 90 90% 10
TR92 Dazzling Gleam Fairy Special 80 100% 10

In these lists, we can see many good moves, like Dazzling Gleam and Draining Kiss, which will help you deal a lot of damage. There are some defensive and buffing moves, too, things like Cotton Guard, Calm Mind, Amnesia, Light Screen a lot more, so you have room for doing a lot of good movesets with Swirlix!

Let’s check out its checks and problems:

Swirlix Strengths

Swirlix is a Fairy-type Pokémon, which means it is strong against the following types:

  • It gets only ½ of the damage against Bug-type.
  • It gets only ½ of the damage against Fighting-type.
  • It gets only ½ of the damage against Dark-type.
  • It is immune to Dragon-type.

The Fairy-type was a game-changer back then when it came out in Gen 6, and Swirlix is a significant demonstration of this. Its immunity to the Dragon-type and its resistance against Dark-types makes it a great candidate to fight against big contenders of LC and NFE like Deino, Dratini and its family, Drakloak, Gabite, and its family, Bagon, and loads of good Dragons on both tiers. Also, it can disable the common strategy of Fighting-types that use Bulk Up to buff themselves and can handle a lot of damage from them.

Lastly, its Fairy-type attacks are effective against Dragon, Fighting, and Dark-types, so you can have the lead in a battle against these types.

Swirlix Weaknesses

  • It takes x2 damage against Steel-type.
  • It takes x2 damage against Poison-type.

Contrary as you might think, Fairy-types (and mostly Swirlix and its evolution, Slurpuff) is one of the strongest types in the game since there aren’t good options to try to get down such a big wall as Swirlix can be. Your Fairy-type attacks will not be a problem for Steel, Poison, and Fire-types, so you can think of another way to attack them successfully.

Nonetheless, you have some menaces like Grimer and its Alolan version, Gastly, Gulpin, Klink, and Koffing, they can screw your strategy even more, when you are doing it, we will explain it right now:

Swirlix Moveset

We recommend using Swirlix with the following setup

  • Cotton Guard
  • Draining Kiss/Dazzling Gleam
  • Calm Mind
  • Wish/Any other Special Attack move, like Flamethrower or Psychic

With Unburden as its Ability, Bold as its nature and Sitrus Berry as its item.

With the following EVs: 4 HP/ 126 Def/ 126 SpA/ 252 Spe.

Let’s explain this setup; First of all, your key here is your ability, Unburden (therefore, it’s Sitrus Berry for activating it) and your capacity to make Swirlix handle enough while using Cotton Guard and Calm Mind.

The first thing you have to use after entering the field is Cotton Guard; with that, you’ll handle almost everything, but the intention is to use your buffing moves to get Swirlix stronger and stronger while its HP is getting to the point where Unburden gets active.

Combine Calm Mind and Cotton Guard until you Unburden gets active, and there’s where the second part of the strategy starts.

If you use Draining Kiss, we recommend choosing as your other move a good Special attack, like Flamethrower, which can help you outplay those Steel-types that can defeat Swirlix or Psychic that can help you get rid of those Poison-types that are the most in LC and in NFE.

But if you choose to use Dazzling Gleam, we recommend you use Wish as your last move. With Wish, after using Wish, you’ll get a heal of 50% of your maximum HP after the end of the next turn, making you capable of hanging enough in the battle to sweep out your enemies.

Swirlix in a video

This video shows a furious Pokémon trainer showcasing all the times he lost against a Swirlix. The rivals of this Pokémon trainer showcase many ways of using Swirlix, mostly getting advantage of Unburden and a Sitrus Berry.

In this video, we can see a Pokémon Showdown match in which Swirlix is surrounded by a great team that buff themselves before using Baton Pass and switch all the buffs to Swirlix. This is an excellent example of a good team that can work perfectly with the Sweeper approach you can give to Swirlix.

FAQs

Question: In which generation was Swirlix added on?

Answer: Swirlix was added in Gen 6 when the Fairy-types were added too. It is the counterpart of Spritzee, and it appeared for the first time in Pokémon X.

Question: With which strategy can Swirlix work better?

Answer: Swirlix is really flexible with its strategies, you can use it as a sweeper, with loads of damage and very quickly attacking its rivals, or you can build it as a wall in which it will support its team with Light Screen.

Question: What is Swirlix based on?

Answer: Swirlix is based on cotton candy. It is a Fairy-type because of the Australian name of the cotton candy; fairy gloss.

We are hoping you all get excited about using Swirlix, it is a great option for battling in both NFE or LC, and you’ll have a lot of fun using it.

Swirlix and Slurpuff are relatively unknown in the competitive system, and that’s kind of unfair considering how much they can do in a battle. Enough said we hope you win a lot of matches and surprise your rivals with this great strategy! Good Luck!

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