Gen 9 New Items: Competitive Guide

The gen 9 new items that matter in battle are nine held-item families introduced across Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. Seven entered with the base game, while Fairy Feather and Ogerpon’s three form-changing masks arrived in The Teal Mask.

What Counts as a New Gen 9 Item?

The useful boundary is the SV battle system. I count held items introduced in the base game or its DLC when they change damage, stat stages, abilities, move effects or form behaviour during a standard battle.

That excludes key items, sandwich ingredients, treasures, TM materials and evolution items with no held battle effect. It also excludes later Generation IX releases built around different battle systems. Those catalogues answer a different question and bring nothing to an SV team preview.

Release wave and competitive legality are separate fields. An item can exist permanently in SV mechanics while its eligible Pokémon, tier placement or tournament access changes between Smogon singles (OU) decisions and dated VGC regulations.

Gen 9 New Items at a Glance

A flat item list hides the decision that matters: what matchup does the slot change? This table groups the permanent mechanics without turning one regulation or ladder snapshot into a universal ranking.

Defensive and Disruption-Proof Items

I got Ability Shield wrong first because I treated it as protection from Ability replacement alone. It also stops suppression and protects applicable Abilities from effects that would normally ignore them, including Mold Breaker interactions. That can preserve Levitate or another defensive Ability when the opposing attack expects to bypass it.

The full boundary matters. Ability Shield protects the holder against Gastro Acid, Worry Seed, Entrainment, Simple Beam, Skill Swap, Role Play, Core Enforcer and Neutralizing Gas. It also stops Ability bypass from Mold Breaker, Teravolt and Turboblaze.

Neutralizing Gas is the clearest Smogon singles use. Galarian Weezing suppresses the other active Pokémon’s Ability while it remains on the field, but a holder with Ability Shield keeps its Ability active. That slot can preserve Regenerator, Levitate or another team-critical mechanic against a Neutralizing Gas build.

Ability Shield does not block damage, stat drops or status merely because an Ability-related line appears in the exchange. Its slot earns itself only when keeping the Ability active changes the matchup; otherwise Leftovers, recovery or damage control may buy more turns.

Clear Amulet stops opposing moves and Abilities from lowering the holder’s stat stages. Intimidate is the defining VGC doubles case: an opposing Incineroar cannot cut the holder’s Attack on entry. Self-inflicted drops and reductions caused by the holder’s ally are outside that protection.

In Smogon singles, Clear Amulet also blocks the Speed drop when the holder enters onto Sticky Web. There is a cost on Defiant and Competitive users: because the reduction never occurs, the Ability does not activate. Kingambit, Bisharp and Braviary lose the expected Defiant boost, while Milotic loses its Competitive trigger.

Covert Cloak blocks the additional effect of a damaging move, not its direct damage. The holder takes Fake Out damage without flinching, takes Salt Cure’s initial hit without receiving its residual condition and avoids Psychic Noise’s healing restriction. Attack-based stat drops are blocked too.

The clean comparison is Shield Dust in an item slot. Rocky Helmet damage and contact-triggered Abilities such as Rough Skin and Iron Barbs are not additional effects of the attacking move, so Covert Cloak does not stop them. Knock Off still removes Covert Cloak, including when the cloak blocks no other effect.

Offensive and Consistency Items

Loaded Dice turns ordinary two-to-five-hit moves such as Bullet Seed and Scale Shot into four or five hits. That narrows the damage range for attackers including Breloom, Baxcalibur and Dragonite, while preserving each hit’s separate interactions with substitutes, Focus Sash and contact where applicable.

Dual Wingbeat, Double Hit, Bonemerang, Gear Grind, Twineedle and Dragon Darts have a fixed hit count, so Loaded Dice does not change them. Skill Link already forces compatible multi-hit moves to their maximum count. Cloyster and Cinccino therefore gain no consistency from pairing Skill Link with the item.

Triple Axel and Triple Kick use one accuracy check with Loaded Dice rather than checking each strike separately. Population Bomb also receives one accuracy check, then lands between four and ten hits. Maushold still cares about accuracy modifiers because failing that single check means zero hits.

Punching Glove multiplies punching-move power by 1.1 and makes those attacks non-contact. Iron Fist is a separate 1.2 multiplier, so a holder with that Ability can receive both modifiers. The non-contact clause can matter more than the modest damage gain when it avoids Rocky Helmet, Rough Skin or contact-triggered effects.

Removing contact also avoids Iron Barbs, Flame Body, Static, Poison Point, Effect Spore, Gooey, Tangling Hair, Cursed Body, Mummy, Wandering Spirit, Perish Body and Aftermath. King’s Shield, Obstruct, Silk Trap, Baneful Bunker and Spiky Shield still block the move, but their contact-dependent punishment does not activate.

Punching Glove has a bad interaction with Urshifu. Unseen Fist bypasses protection only with contact moves, so a punching attack made non-contact by the glove is stopped by Protect. The item’s affected move list includes attacks such as Drain Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Fire Punch, Mach Punch, Bullet Punch, Jet Punch, Shadow Punch and Surging Strikes.

Mirror Herb is consumed when it copies an opposing Pokémon’s positive stat-stage changes. It copies the stages once rather than stealing them, making it an anti-setup option for fast offense or a way to punish an unchecked boost. If no qualifying increase occurs, the item remains held.

Outside battle, Mirror Herb has a separate picnic function: a holder with an empty move slot can receive a compatible Egg Move from another Pokémon. That breeding shortcut has no effect on its in-battle activation.

Booster Energy and Paradox Pokémon

Booster Energy is not a generic 30% stat item. It is consumed to activate Protosynthesis or Quark Drive when harsh sunlight or Electric Terrain is not already providing the activation.

If the required weather or terrain is absent, Booster Energy is consumed immediately when the holder enters the field. The selected stat is fixed at that activation point and is not recalculated after later stat changes.

The Ability compares the holder’s calculated Attack, Defence, Special Attack, Special Defence and Speed, including its nature but excluding in-battle stat stages. The highest qualifying stat receives a 30% multiplier, except Speed, which receives 50%. Ties resolve in the order Attack, Defence, Special Attack, Special Defence and Speed.

That multiplier is not a stat stage. Haze does not remove it, Unaware does not ignore it and forced switching does not reset the chosen boost while the holder remains on the field. Phazing ends an item-based activation only by making the holder leave.

This makes the EV spread part of the item mechanic. Flutter Mane and Iron Valiant can target Speed for immediate tempo or arrange a higher attacking stat for damage. Great Tusk, Roaring Moon and Iron Hands face the same choice through different base-stat distributions.

Sunlight or Electric Terrain activates the matching Ability without consuming Booster Energy. If that environmental activation ends while the Pokémon remains in battle, the item can then be consumed. A Booster Energy activation lasts until the holder leaves the field; switching also means the spent item cannot trigger again.

I think Speed is the safer default only when the spread converts that 50% boost into a specific move-order advantage. Raw Speed without a target is the item equivalent of copying an EV spread without running the calc.

DLC Items: Fairy Feather and Ogerpon’s Masks

The Teal Mask added Fairy Feather as a clean 20% boost to Fairy-type moves. It has no recoil and does not lock move selection, but it boosts one attacking type rather than the entire set. Choice items offer a larger modifier with a lock, while Life Orb covers every damaging type at an HP cost.

Hearthflame Mask, Wellspring Mask and Cornerstone Mask are restricted to Ogerpon. Each changes its form, sets Ivy Cudgel to Fire, Water or Rock respectively and multiplies matching-type move power by 1.2. Teal Mask Ogerpon remains the base Grass form rather than using one of these held masks.

A mask held by its matching Ogerpon cannot be removed, swapped, suppressed or flung. Knock Off, Trick, Switcheroo, Thief, Covet and Fling fail to take it, while Magic Room does not suppress its form-changing effect. That protection is a competitive advantage no removable 1.2× item shares.

The masks also determine Ogerpon’s Terastallized type. Terastallization changes its Ability to the form-specific Embody Aspect effect, while Ivy Cudgel retains the type tied to that form. Teal Mask raises Speed, Wellspring raises Special Defence, Hearthflame raises Attack and Cornerstone raises Defence by one stage.

That package cannot be evaluated like a generic 20% type item. Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Ogerpon-Wellspring and Ogerpon-Cornerstone are distinct form choices with different defensive matchups before the damage bonus is considered.

Damage Checks and Example Sets

The multiplier calc exposes what the slot actually buys. An Iron Fist punch starts at 1.2× its ordinary damage; Punching Glove makes the combined modifier 1.2 × 1.1 = 1.32×. A roll that would deal 100–118 HP without either effect becomes about 120–141 HP with Iron Fist and 132–155 HP with both, before integer rounding inside the battle calculation.

The same normalised check puts an Ogerpon mask at 1.2×, Life Orb at 1.3× and Choice Band at 1.5×. A physical move with a 100–118 HP unmodified roll becomes about 120–141 HP with the mask, 130–153 HP with Life Orb or 150–177 HP with Choice Band. The mask gives less raw damage, but it keeps move freedom, causes no recoil and cannot be removed from the matching Ogerpon.

Loaded Dice Baxcalibur

Baxcalibur @ Loaded Dice – Thermal Exchange, Jolly nature, 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe; Dragon Dance / Scale Shot / Icicle Spear / Protect. Loaded Dice makes both attacks dependable enough for the set to plan around four or five hits rather than a two-hit floor.

Clear Amulet Kingambit

Kingambit @ Clear Amulet – Supreme Overlord, Adamant nature, 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD; Swords Dance / Kowtow Cleave / Sucker Punch / Iron Head. The item keeps Sticky Web and opposing stat drops from cutting the set’s immediate pressure, but this version deliberately gives up Defiant rather than accidentally blocking its trigger.

Wellspring Mask Ogerpon

Ogerpon-Wellspring @ Wellspring Mask – Water Absorb, Jolly nature, 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe; Ivy Cudgel / Horn Leech / Follow Me / Spiky Shield. The mask fixes the Water form, boosts Ivy Cudgel by 20%, resists item removal and turns Embody Aspect into a one-stage Special Defence increase after Terastallization.

Competitive Impact and Item Selection

Singles and doubles price item slots differently. Smogon singles (OU) values repeated entry, hazard exposure and long exchanges, so Heavy-Duty Boots or Leftovers can beat narrow protection. VGC doubles compresses games into fewer turns, raising the value of blocking one Intimidate, Fake Out flinch or secondary effect.

Clear Amulet competes with damage and survival items on physical attackers. Covert Cloak competes with Focus Sash on frail support Pokémon such as Whimsicott and with recovery on bulkier holders. Ability Shield is narrower still: use it when ability suppression or bypass is the reason a planned line fails.

Loaded Dice and Punching Glove need a move set that repeatedly collects their benefit. Mirror Herb needs an opposing setup line worth punishing. Booster Energy needs both an eligible Ability and a deliberately calculated highest stat. If those conditions are absent, a Choice item or defensive staple usually has the clearer job.

Usage percentage cannot settle these choices without a ladder tier, format and time window. Popularity describes what players brought, not which matchup the item flipped. Permanent mechanics stay stable; legality, tier placement and opponent distributions remain format-specific.