Pokemon Bank shutdown: Every Shiny, form and Ribbon affected

The Pokemon Company will end Pokemon Bank and Bank-to-HOME transfers on February 25, 2027 at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET. Any Pokemon already in HOME will remain there, and players will still be able to trade existing copies.

What ends is the only official bridge that carries Pokemon from the 3DS Virtual Console, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Nintendo DS and native 3DS games into the current ecosystem.

While Dexerto covered the initial shutdown announcement, this article aims to list the Pokemon, forms, Shinies, Ribbons, titles, origin records and HOME challenges that become impossible to obtain or that become increasingly finite when that bridge closes.

This list reflects announced games and compatibility as of August 14, 2026. A future game, event or HOME update could restore an affected species or form.

Table of Contents

• What Pokemon Bank’s shutdown actually means
• Games cut off from Pokemon HOME
• Pokemon and forms locked behind Bank
• Shiny Pokemon locked behind Bank
• Shiny HOME Pokedex entries at risk
• Ribbons and titles locked behind Bank
• Legendary Pokemon affected
• Mythical Pokemon affected
• Origin marks and special Pokemon affected
• Moves, abilities and Poke Balls affected
• Pokemon HOME challenges affected
• What to transfer first

What Pokemon Bank’s shutdown actually means

There are three different kinds of loss, and treating them as the same thing produces misleading lists.

Hard loss: no new legitimate specimen or record can reach HOME through any announced route. Spinda, Battle Bond Greninja and Poke Ball Pattern Vivillon are the clearest examples.

Finite supply: existing copies in HOME survive and can still be traded, but no new copies can be moved from their original games. Most old Ribbons, origin marks and event Pokemon fall here.

Provenance loss: the species remains available in a modern game, but the exact game of origin, OT, event, ball, move history or Ribbon journey cannot be recreated.

Nothing in HOME is being deleted by the Bank shutdown. Pokemon left inside Bank itself, or stranded in the games below it, simply lose their official path forward.

Games cut off from Pokemon HOME

Bank and Poke Transporter can no longer be downloaded from the 3DS eShop. A working installation is therefore already required, along with a Pokemon HOME Premium Plan for the final Bank-to-HOME move.

Pokemon and forms locked behind Bank

Only one species and two collectible forms are currently dependent on Bank for new HOME specimens.

Totem-sized Pokemon are not on this list because HOME already converts the transferable ones to normal size. Cosplay Pikachu, Spiky-eared Pichu, partner Pikachu and partner Eevee also cannot enter Bank or HOME in the first place.

Shiny Pokemon locked behind Bank

Under current availability, these are the Shiny species or forms that could be obtained before the Switch era but are Shiny-locked in every announced Switch appearance.

Shiny Mew, Jirachi, Deoxys, Manaphy, Darkrai and Shaymin all have, or have had, non-Bank routes in Pokemon GO, Switch games or HOME rewards. Their old game origins still become finite, but the Shiny species do not currently meet the same hard-loss test.

The Shiny Manaphy HOME reward is one example of a modern route changing this calculation.

Shiny HOME Pokedex entries at risk

This is a different collectible from owning a Shiny Pokemon.

The Generation 7 QR Scanner can register certain unobtainable Shiny forms in the Alola Pokedex. Moving a Pokemon from Bank to HOME also moves Bank’s Pokedex data, so those registrations can carry into HOME even though no legitimate Shiny specimen exists.

Players who only care about a living collection can ignore this section. Players trying to maximize HOME’s Shiny form Pokedex cannot.

Ribbons and titles locked behind Bank

Ribbons stay attached to a Pokemon across generations. In Sword, Shield, Scarlet and Violet, many of them also unlock a title that can be displayed when the Pokemon enters battle.

These 15 Ribbon titles have no announced Bank-free way to be newly earned and carried into HOME. The Champion Ribbon is a separate edge case listed immediately afterward.

The original Generation 3 Champion Ribbon gives the title “the Champion.” It comes from Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and the original GBA versions of FireRed and LeafGreen.

The Switch releases of FireRed and LeafGreen are getting HOME support in October 2026, and Pokemon from those releases receive a new Game Boy Advance origin mark. Until the transfer implementation is live, it is safer not to call the Ribbon itself permanently lost. The original no-mark GBA provenance will still be finite.

Two exceptionally rare historical titles are also tied to old tournament winners: the Country Ribbon gives “the Victor,” while the World Ribbon gives “the World Conqueror.” The Battle Champion Ribbon, found on a small number of older competition or event Pokemon, gives “the Battle Champion.” Existing copies can move forward until Bank closes.

Not every old Ribbon is affected as a class. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl can still award the Sinnoh Champion Ribbon, Contest Star Ribbon, five Master Rank Contest Ribbons, daily Ribbons, Footprint Ribbon, Gorgeous and Royal Ribbons, and Tower Master Ribbon.

Current games also retain routes for the Effort, Best Friends and Master Rank Ribbons. Gift Ribbons such as Classic, Premier, Event and Wishing also continue to appear on modern distributions.

Legendary Pokemon affected

There is no long list of Legendary species that suddenly vanishes from Pokemon HOME. Modern games and Pokemon GO provide alternatives for most of them.

What Bank’s closure freezes is the supply of Legendaries carrying these exact game origins, encounter histories and, in some cases, old Ribbons or event data.

The Switch versions of FireRed and LeafGreen soften part of the loss. They can produce new Kanto and event-island Pokemon once HOME support arrives, but HOME gives them a Game Boy Advance origin mark.

Pokemon from the original 2004 cartridges have no origin mark, so collectors can tell the two lineages apart.

Mythical Pokemon affected

Most Mythical species below have another modern source, or may receive one later. These are the notable legitimate old routes that Bank can still preserve.

Meltan and Melmetal are unaffected because their transfer route begins with Pokemon GO or Pokemon: Let’s Go rather than Bank.

Origin marks and special Pokemon affected

HOME records more than a species name. It preserves the game of origin, origin mark, language, OT, Trainer ID, met data, Poke Ball and Ribbons. Bank’s closure stops new examples of four major legacy provenance groups.

That also captures several specialist collections:

• Shadow Pokemon from Colosseum and XD, especially purified Pokemon carrying the National Ribbon.
• N’s 15 Pokemon from Black 2 and White 2: Purrloin, Pidove, Woobat, Timburr, Tympole, Sandile, Darumaka, Darmanitan, Scraggy, Sigilyph, Zorua, Boldore, Joltik, Ferroseed and Klink. They have OT N, Trainer ID 00002, fixed near-perfect IVs and cannot be Shiny.
• Pokemon Dream Radar Legendaries and Dream Ball origins, including the Therian forces of nature and cartridge-linked Legendary encounters.
• Pokemon Dream World specimens with old Dream Ball, Hidden Ability and move combinations.
• Hayley’s Mew and Phione from My Pokemon Ranch, Battle Revolution gifts, Pokemon Ranger rewards, PokeWalker Pokemon and other side-game transfers.
• Every pre-Switch Mystery Gift or local event Pokemon still sitting below Bank. The species may be common, but its OT, ID, Ribbon or event moves can be unique.

Moves, abilities and Poke Balls affected

The list of old move combinations is enormous, but modern HOME does not treat all of them as one permanent competitive moveset. HOME stores game-specific move data, and Scarlet and Violet rebuild a transferred Pokemon’s moves from what that game allows. Deleted moves remain unusable even if they appear in old history.

There are three current Bank-dependent Egg Move combinations that matter inside Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl:

Rare Poke Ball collectors face a broader provenance freeze.

Apricorn Ball captures from HeartGold and SoulSilver, Dream Ball Pokemon from the Dream World and Dream Radar, old Safari and Sport Ball lines, and unusual GameCube captures all become finite in HOME.

Many of those balls have been reissued in modern games, so the lost element is often the ball plus origin combination rather than the ball alone.

Carnivine is the main current edge case. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl only catch it in a Safari Ball at the Great Marsh, while older games can create many other ball combinations, including Apricorn Ball Carnivine through HeartGold and SoulSilver’s Thursday Sinnoh Sound encounters.

Pokemon GO can cover some standard balls, so specialist ball-by-ball legality should be checked before describing every non-Safari Carnivine as extinct.

Pokemon HOME challenges affected

One HOME challenge becomes completely impossible to complete after the servers close:

• Move Pokemon from Pokemon Bank!

You can still complete the remaining origin challenges later by receiving an already-transferred qualifying Pokemon in a trade. Players who want their own OT or do not want to depend on a shrinking trade pool should finish them now.

The hidden “Move Pokemon from Pokemon Bank,” Diancie, Poke Transporter Eevee, Poke Transporter Litwick and Pulverizing Snorlax challenges still remain visible on accounts that already completed them.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s Time Travel Award also requires a Pokemon that originated in the original Diamond, Pearl or Platinum. Existing transferred Pokemon can still be traded after Bank closes, but no new qualifying specimen can leave a DS save.

What to transfer first

Players do not need to empty every cartridge blindly. A priority order avoids wasting the remaining window.

1. Move anything already stored in Pokemon Bank. Those Pokemon are at the greatest risk because the cloud box closes with the service
2. Secure the hard exclusives: Spinda, Battle Bond Greninja, Poke Ball Pattern Vivillon and the Bank-only Shinies
3. Finish Ribbon Masters before moving them out of each generation. Transfers are one-way, and several Ribbons require long battle streaks or Contest progress
4. Move legitimate event Pokemon, Shadow Pokemon, Ranger Manaphy Eggs, N’s Pokemon and side-game gifts with unique OTs or Ribbons
5. Complete HOME’s Bank transfer challenge and any game-origin challenges you want under your own OT
6. Preserve representative Pokemon from every origin group: no mark, Game Boy, blue pentagon and black clover
7. Check moves and balls last. Many old moves cannot be used in current games, while modern games reproduce a large number of old ball combinations. Bank-to-HOME moves are one-way. Once a Pokemon enters HOME, it cannot return to Bank or its original game, so finish any old-game goals before pressing transfer