In Pokémon Shield, the Stow-on-Side Stadium specializes in Ghost-type Pokémon. Its Gym Leader is Allister and he’s quite shy, to the point where he’ll wear a mask to make fighting in front of a live audience much easier.
The are several differences between Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. One of the major differences is that there are two Gym Leaders that differ between the two games. The content below is only relevant to you if you’re playing Pokémon Shield, although the puzzles in the Gym are essentially the same regardless of which version you’re playing.
Before taking on the Gym Mission, be sure to talk to your friend, the Ball Guy, and he’ll give you a Heavy Ball, which has a higher catch rate when used on heavier Pokémon. Again, this is a fairly rare ball, so you’re probably best holding onto it for specific purposes.
Anyway, make sure your Pokémon are healed, and then head on into the Gym Mission.
How to Get Through the Stow-on-Side Gym Mission
The Stow-on-Side Gym Mission is definitely pretty interactive compared to other Gym Missions. It involves you spinning in a teacup down a slope, similarly to a pachinko machine.
In order to steer, you’ll have to actually spin your control stick in a direction. You can’t just hold a direction in move in that direction. It may be a little tricky to figure out at first, and which direction you spin the control stick — clockwise or counterclockwise — will determine which direction you go and at what speed.
Keep in mind that you can leave the challenge by taking the teleporter on any of the platforms, but you’ll have to restart your Gym Mission, meaning you’ll be placed back at the beginning (although you won’t have to fight any of the Gym Trainers along the way).
Gym Trainers
Here are the Trainers that you’ll fight while going through the Gym Mission. You’ll fight one at the end of each puzzle.
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First Puzzle
For the first puzzle, there’s nothing too tough to figure out, except for learning the basic controls. Just do your best to spin in the direction you want to go, making your way all the way down to the lower area.
After clearing the puzzle and hopefully getting a feel for how the spinning works, you’ll have to fight against Gym Trainer Clive.
Second Puzzle
The second puzzle is more difficult and has a new mechanic in the form of eerie hands that will push your teacup far up, sort of like a bumper from a pinball machine.
- You’re going to want to slide down and hug the right wall and guide yourself to the hand over on the right.
- That hand and the hand after it should be enough to push you up to the top of the bend on the top-right.
- As you fall down after that, hug the left side so you don’t fall onto the hand down below and can instead land on the platform.
After clearing this second puzzle, you’ll have to fight against Gym Trainer Lynne before proceeding to the third and final puzzle. She uses a Galarian Corsola, which is a bit different than the Corsola you may be familiar with. It is a pure Ghost-type Pokémon and is quite defensive, but it does have Weak Armor, which lowers its Defense when it’s hit by Physical-based moves, but then sharply raises its Speed.
Third Puzzle
The final puzzle is quite a bit trickier, so get ready for a wild ride.
- You’ll want to go into that opening in the left first and foremost.
- You’ll be pushed down by the hand on the ceiling.
- Spin to the left, over to the hand there, and keep spinning left after that to fall into that hole on the left side.
- The hand down that hole on the left side will launch your teacup up near the top again. You need to spin to head to the right as much as possible, along the “stairs” that go into the right side of the puzzle.
- “Hand chaos” will ensue after that, but you should be fine and arrive at the end without any inputs required, so don’t worry.
Once you’ve gotten through the final puzzle, you’ll still have to fight one more Gym Trainer before you can fight the Gym Leader. Gym Trainer Roy blocks your path, so take him down and then make your way to the pitch to get ready to fight the Gym Leader.
Gym Leader Battle
Use healing items to heal your Pokémon if necessary, or leave the pitch and exit the Gym Mission, which actually allows you to skip right back to the Gym Leader battle as long as you’ve cleared the puzzle.
When you’re ready, make your way to the pitch and prepare to face off against the fourth Gym Leader, Allister!
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Allister leads with his Galarian Yamask, which is a local variant of Yamask and is actually Ground/Ghost-type. It’s a bit on the defensive side, and when you hit it with moves that make contact, its Wandering Spirit Ability will activate, which switches the attacker’s Ability with Wandering Spirit, as long as the Pokémon with Wandering Spirit isn’t knocked out. This can cause your Pokémon to lose its Ability for the fight (unless it switches out), but if Yamask attacks, it might end up swapping the Ability again.
His Mimikyu is a threat due to the fact it will absorb the first hit you deal it thanks to its Disguise Ability. It’s also part-Fairy-type, so Dark-type moves aren’t super-effective—use Ghost- or Steel-type moves instead. Hit it with any sort of move to break that Disguise so you can hit it with other moves. Since it has Baby-Doll Eyes, you’ll need to be careful using Physical-based attackers against it, especially since it can pull off Baby-Doll Eyes potentially twice before you get a chance to actually damage it thanks to Disguise and its higher priority.
His Cursola is the evolved form of Galarian Corsola, which you saw earlier in the Gym, and it is particularly scary due to its very high Special Attack stat. It has very good Special Defense as well, but its Defense is not all that great and it still has Weak Armor, so one or two good Physical-based moves should take it down. Watch out, though, as it may use Curse, which will half its HP but cause your Pokémon affected by it to take 1/4 its max HP in damage between each turn, so you’ll want to switch out if you get affected by it.
Last up is his Gengar, which he will Gigantamax on the first turn it’s sent out. First of all, unlike Gastly and Haunter, Gengar does not have Levitate in this generation, so Ground-type moves are super effective against it and a good way to go. Its signature G-Max Move, G-Max Terror, hits quite hard and also prevents the damaged Pokémon from switching out. If its Gigantamax runs out, you’ll have to deal with Venoshock and Hex as damaging threats, as well as Hypnosis potentially putting your Pokémon to sleep, but that will be much easier to manage than while it is in its Gigantamax form.
After Beating the Gym
After you’ve defeated Allister, he’ll reward you with the Ghost Badge, which allows you to catch Pokémon up to level 40. You’ll also be rewarded with TM77 Hex, a 60 power Special-based Ghost-type move that does double damage if the target is affected by a major status condition. You’ll also get the Ghost Uniform to add to your clothing collection.
Now that you’ve got your fourth Gym Badge, you’ll need to head back to Stow-on-Side and take care of some business before making your way to the next town.