List of new Dragon and Flying Pokémon released on February 9 2018

Dear reader, tomorrow is the day when Niantic will release the final large wave of new Hoenn Pokémon. We hope you’re ready, as there have been hints of an upcoming raid and egg shake-up, in addition to the spectacular release of Rayquaza as a Tier 5 Raid boss.

You should probably get some sleep tonight, but before you hit the bunk, let’s see which new Pokémon are coming tomorrow and what you can expect from their role in the meta. We bolded important Pokémon families.

New Dragon & Flying Pokémon

• Castform — heavily tied to weather. Four forms were recently discovered in network traffic: Normal, Sunny, Rainy, Snowy
• Taillow and Swellow — basically Spearow and Farrow of Gen III
• Wingull and Pelipper — a family of sea birds with Water and Flying typing.
• Surskit and Masquerain — an interesting family of flying bugs, whose typing and moves make them useful low budget Grass counters. Could be useful in Gym offense and lower tier raids.
• Swablu and Altaria — Altaria is one of the biggest disappointments in Gen III, with merely 1868 Max CP and mediocre movepool
• Tropius — a Flying Grass Pokémon that has access to Leaf Blade and no particular role in the meta. Potential region exclusive, be on the lookout.
• Volbeat and Illumise — weak Bug types with 100% gender split. Volbeat is male, Illumise female counterpart.
• Salamence, Shelgon and Bagon — Dragon and Flying typed Pokémon family that fits just under Dragonite in terms of performance. You should treat them as you would treat a Hariyama next to a Machamp.
• Metagross, Metang and Beldum — the iconic pseudo-legendary Generation III family, the Tyranitar of Generation III. On release Metagross will be the strongest Steel and one of the strongest Psychic types in game. It’s a must catch, don’t skip on anyone in this family line. Potential shiny.
• Chimecho — an average Psychic type. Potential regional.

Odd ones out

The following Pokémon are not Flying or Dragon types and their release is questionable:

• Kecleon — a color changing chameleon that can basically become invisible
• Spinda — hypno bear
• Clamperl, Huntail and Gorebyss — probably a random evolution. No Deepsea item is in the APK, if they appear tomorrow, the evolution will be randomized.
• Nincada, Ninjask and Shedinja — Nincada is an interesting catch as when it evolves, it sheds its skin and two Pokémon are created: Ninjask and Shedinja. Nothing meta-changing, but an interesting twist on the general evolution mechanism.