The Shiny Living Dex Checklist

What a shiny living dex is, how big it really is, and the Pokémon that stop most people finishing one.

A living dex is a collection with one of every Pokémon stored in your boxes at the same time, in National Dex order. A shiny living dex is the ultimate version of that: a shiny of every single one. It is the completionist’s holy grail, and it is a long road.

How big is a living dex?

As of 2026 the National Dex holds 1,025 Pokémon across nine generations. That is around 34 boxes in Pokémon HOME or your game at 30 per box. A shiny living dex means tracking down a shiny for every one of those 1,025. Pokémon Legends: Z-A did not add any new species, but it did bring a fresh wave of Mega Evolutions and plenty of new shinies to chase.

Living dex checklist by generation

The easiest way to track a living dex is generation by generation. Here are the National Dex numbers and totals for each:

The Pokémon that stop people finishing

Almost nobody gets stuck on the common Pokémon. The gaps in a living dex, and especially a shiny living dex, are nearly always the same handful of hard-to-get types:

• Legendaries and box-art Pokémon, often one per save and shiny-locked in their own game.
• Mythicals like Mew, Celebi, Zarude and Zeraora, that were only ever handed out at events.
• Event-only distributions that ended long ago, so there is no legitimate way left to get them in-game.
• Version exclusives that force you to own or trade across both games in a pair.
• Starters and their shinies, since you only get one per playthrough.
• Regional forms scattered across several different games.

These are exactly the Pokémon PokeGens delivers: legal, ready to battle, and traded straight to your Switch, so you can fill the gaps that took everyone else years.

Building a shiny living dex is a marathon. Whether you need a single missing legendary or a full shiny set, we can help you finish it.