Simple Shiny Breeding Guide for Pokémon Sword and Shield
When it comes to getting shiny Pokémon, there are two main ways to get them. Either finding them in the wild or by breeding.
If you want to know more about breeding in general, you can find a basic Easy Breeding Guide, an Advanced Breeding Guide and a Competitive Breeding Guide here.
Shiny breeding
The general chance of getting a shiny Pokémon, for both wild and breeding, is 1/4096. Shiny breeding is pretty straight forward and we can massively increase our chances by using two Pokémon of different languages. This is called the Masuda Method.
Masuda Method
This method has been around for a long time now and is named after Pokémon game developer Junichi Masuda.
The main idea is to increase the shiny chance by breeding two Pokémon of two different languages. You can see the language of a traded Pokémon in the top right, next to the Pokémon’s name, unless it is the same language as yours. The Masuda Method increases your chances from 1/4096 to 1/683, so it is six times more likely to get a shiny.
The best and most popular strategy is to get a foreign Ditto. Although it works with any foreign Pokémon, using a Ditto does not limit you to a certain egg group. As long as you are simply breeding for a shiny Pokémon, getting the foreign Ditto is probably the most complicated part. Once you have one, put in in the daycare on Route 5 or in the Wild Area together with your desired shiny Pokémon and keep hatching eggs until you get a shiny. Quick reminder that having a Pokémon with flame body on your team doubles the hatching speed, you can find more about increasing breeding and hatching speed in my Easy Breeding Guide.
But you can increase your shiny chances even a little bit further with the Shiny Charm. You get it in the left hotel in Circhester after completing your Pokédex. Go up the elevator and to the room at the far left. Talk to the guy in the back of the room and he will give you the Shiny Charm. The Shiny charm increases your overall shiny chance to 1/1365 and to 1/512 for breeding using the Masuda Method.
