Ability Detail

Summary

Magic Guard is an ability in the Pokémon series that provides complete immunity to indirect damage. This means that a Pokémon with Magic Guard will only take damage from direct attacks and will not be affected by indirect damage sources such as:

Status conditions like Burn, Poison, and Toxic
Weather effects like Hail and Sandstorm
Entry hazards like Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and Stealth Rock
Recoil damage from moves like Brave Bird and Double-Edge
Life Orb recoil, while still benefiting from the 30% power boost it provides

Magic Guard does not prevent the effects of the status conditions themselves, only the damage they would normally cause. For instance, a Pokémon with Magic Guard that is poisoned will not lose HP due to poison, but it will still be affected by other aspects of the poison status, such as being unable to heal naturally when set by certain moves like Toxic Spikes.

Another fascinating aspect of Magic Guard is that it negates the damage from

Effects

This Pokémon is immune to damage not directly caused by a move. For example, this Pokémon takes no damage from from weather, recoil, status ailments, or spikes, but it still suffers from the Attack cut when burned, and a life orb will still power up this Pokémon's moves without damaging it. Anything that directly depends on such damage will also not happen; for example, leech seed will neither hurt this Pokémon nor heal the opponent, and Pokémon with a jaboca berry or rowap berry will not consume the berry when hit by this Pokémon. The following are unaffected: struggle, pain split (whether used by or against this Pokémon), belly drum, substitute, curse, moves that knock the user out, and damage from confusion. This Pokémon will neither lose nor regain HP if it drains HP from a Pokémon with liquid ooze. If this Pokémon is badly poisoned, the poison counter is still increased each turn; if the Pokémon loses this ability, it will begin taking as much damage as it would be if it had been taking increasing damage each turn.

Flavor Texts

diamond-pearl: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

platinum: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

heartgold-soulsilver: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

black-white: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

black-2-white-2: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

x-y: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

omega-ruby-alpha-sapphire: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

sun-moon: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

ultra-sun-ultra-moon: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

lets-go-pikachu-lets-go-eevee: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.

sword-shield: The Pokémon only takes damage from attacks.