 Part of the fun of the main series Pokémon games is the lore of each species, which Pokémon GO recreates with short descriptions in their Pokédex entries. However, looking into the roles these Pokémon play in other games, and even the anime, can enrich the experience of hunting these creatures in Niantic's mobile game. In honor of Gible's current feature in raids, let's take a deep dive into this Pokémon's lore.
Dex entry number 443, Gible is a dual Dragon/Ground-type species from the Sinnoh Region, introduced into the world of Pokémon with Generation Four. This Pokémon can be encountered as either male or female. Referred to as the "Land Shark Pokémon," which fans of either Jenna Marbles, Marvel, or SNL may find entertaining, this is what Gible's Dex entry says: Its original home is an area much hotter than Alola. If you're planning to live with one, your heating bill will soar. Gible is notorious to Pokémon GO players for two reasons. One, because its evolutionary line is uniquely powerful. Gible evolves into Gabite, which evolves into Garchomp. Garchomp is at the very top of the meta for both Ground-types and Dragon-types, making it one of the most desirable species in the game. Gible is also notorious, though, because of its lasting rarity in Pokémon GO. This rarity is unique to Niantic, as Gible isn't nearly that rare in the main series games or in the Trading Card Game. Why Niantic chose this species to make into a little rare land shark remains a mystery. For fans of the anime, Gible is featured prominently because of the species being caught by two major characters: Iris in a Black & White special that remains unaired in the United States and Ash in Gotta Get a Gible! Ash's Gible actually debuted before that, though, in A Meteoric Rise to Excellence! where Ash helps it, at which point it begins to follow him. If only it were that easy in Pokémon GO. Other Pokédex entries offer new information about Gible:
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 Part of the fun of the main series Pokémon games is the lore of each species, which Pokémon GO recreates with short descriptions in their Pokédex entries. However, looking into the roles these Pokémon play in other games, and even the anime, can enrich the experience of hunting these creatures in Niantic's mobile game. In honor of this week's release of Shiny Buizel, let's take a deep dive into this little guy's lore.
Dex entry number 418, Buizel is a pure Water-type species from the Sinnoh Region, introduced into the world of Pokémon with Generation Four. This Pokémon can be encountered as either male or female and has a slight gender difference. The male has two spots on its back while the female has one. Referred to as the "Sea Weasel Pokémon," this is what Cresselia's Dex entry says: It inflates the floatation sac around its neck and pokes its head out of the water to see what is going on. Buizel is the first stage of a two-stage evolutionary line. It evolves into Floatzel, which retains the "Sea Weasel" classification. Though it is called "Weasel" in this classification and is named after one, this line also seems to draw inspiration from both pool floaties and another real-life animal… the sea otter. For fans of the anime, Buizel has quite the distinction of having belonged to two different main characters. Dawn catches a Buizel in Buizel Your Way Out of This! which she then trades to Ash, in exchange for his Aipom, in Throwing the Track Switch. Other Buizel feature in minor appearances through the series, the Pikachu shorts, and the movies, but a female Buizel has still never been featured. Other Pokédex entries offer new information about Buizel: Platinum: It spins its two tails like a screw to propel itself through water. The tails also slice clinging seaweed.  Pokémon Go made over $1 billion last year, which means loads of you are still playing it. Which is great! But hey, just remember, we’re still somehow in the middle of a global pandemic, and so going outside isn’t always the smartest idea.
Pokémon Go to its credit knows this, which is why the game has been tweaked over the last 12 months to accommodate the fact a lot of people haven’t been able to get together like we used to, but no amount of tweaking can make it a stay-at-home singleplayer experience, which has been causing some problems in places like the United Kingdom, where people are currently under a strict lockdown. As local paper The Southern Standard report, police in Rochford, England made a tweet the other day saying: Whilst patrolling, our community policing team, have had cause to speak with a number of different men, aged 30+ over the last week, who seemed to feel it is acceptable to attend certain public places within the district, to hunt Pokemon. Honestly, yes, you did read that correctly. If that happens to be someone you know, please remind them of the following information shared by our partners at Rochford District Council. That post was soon deleted, but only because of its tone, not its content, with a police spokesperson telling Eurogamer “The tweet was issued in good faith but was later deleted to ensure the appropriate level of seriousness when sharing crucial partnership and safety messages about the pandemic.” The UK is in lockdown. The Netherlands is in lockdown. Germany is about to enter one hell of a lockdown that could last up to 10 weeks. The US...should be in lockdown. If your local laws (or just local conditions for Americans) mean going outside is a bad idea right now, and that socialising is an even worse one, if you want to use Pokémon Go to help you exercise make sure you stay safe!  One of the most prominent aspects of the original Pokémon games that have not yet been fully incorporated into Pokémon GO is trainer encounters. In the main series games, the player journeys from town-to-town encountering not just wild Pokémon to battle and potentially catch, but also NPC trainers that are waiting to battle you. These trainers have been part of the franchise since the very beginning and have even had their impact on other media, just as the Trading Card Game, where certain "Trainer Classes," which is the means by which these NPCs are classified, appear on the cards such as Lass and Beauty. Niantic has begun incorporating NPC battles into Pokémon GO with their Team GO Rocket battles in 2019. This started with Grunt battles and has since expanded to encounters with Team GO Rocket leaders, the Team GO Rocket boss Giovanni, and, most recently, the iconic Rocket duo Jessie and James made famous by their encounters with Ash and Pikachu in the anime. However, trainers have not yet had the chance to battle… well, non-evil NPCs. Now, Niantic has announced that these battles will be featured for the very first time in their Pokémon GO Tour: Kanto event. Not only will encounterable trainers be introduced, but they are also running a contest that will end with actual players selected to become part of these map encounters. Ahead of the release of this new feature, Niantic previewed what these encounters will look like on the Pokémon GO Twitter page.
What remains to be seen about these encounters, though, is how they will end. Team GO Rocket encounters end with an item drop as well as a Pokémon encounter. Because Team GO Rocket is an evil organization that kidnaps and corrupts these creatures, the idea is that they have dropped one of their Shadow Pokémon and don't care to stick around to save them. The player can then catch the creature, essentially saving it. It would make less sense if an encounter with a trainer who isn't dastardly but just competitive ends with you catching their companion, so it'll be quite interesting to see how Niantic chooses to make these encounters worth the engagement.  Generation Six has begun to roll out in Pokémon GO, which surprised some trainers due to the amount of Generation Five species that have yet to be released in the game. However, there are still species from even earlier generations that are, for some reason, missing. These are the species from Generations One through Four that are missing in Pokémon GO.
The missing Pokémon are…
 Along with the Unova Celebration Event currently live in Pokémon GO, Niantic introduced a brand new challenge for trainers to complete. Here is everything there currently is to know about Collection Challenges in Pokémon GO.
The basic premise of Collection Challenges in Pokémon GO isn't much different from Timed Research tasks. To access a currently live Collection Challenge, go to the Today View where Timed Research is located. There, you will see the challenge, which challenges trainers to catch a specific collection of Pokémon. All of the species' sprites are pictured there and, when one is caught, trainers are alerted that they've made progress the exact same was as with Research. Trainers must catch just one of each tasked species in order to complete the challenge. This feature debuted during the Unova Celebration Event, and it was easy to complete. So easy that some trainers wondered why it was there at all, especially considering the unimpressive rewards given. Personally, I believe that this was purposely simple as a trial run for something bigger. Based on what we know about the upcoming Pokémon GO Tour: Kanto, this new feature will likely come into play. In a previous announcement, Niantic revealed that trainers would be tasked with catching every single Generation One species during the event. While the event is confirmed to have Special Research, I think we can safely say that catching every Kanto species will be done as a Collection Challenge. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that this feature may have been created specifically for that event. Think about it. If "Catch Every Kanto Species" was a task on a page of Special Research, trainers would be stuck on a single page for likely the vast majority of the event. This feels like a clever way to separate that kind of task from Special Research to facilitate trainers in advancing through other tasks while working on a larger goal.  Niantic has announced a new collaboration that will allow Pokémon GO trainers to receive avatar items based on clothing from The North Face x Gucci Collection. These items are now live in-game and can be obtained through spinning Pokéstops at Gucci Pins pop-up shops.
Gucci Pins pop-up shops, where trainers can spin Pokéstops to update their Pokémon GO avatar's style and then match that outfit with actual, real-life items, can be found at the following locations:
If you're both a Pokémon GO player and a Star Wars: The Last Jedi fan, maybe you'll run into Ryan Johnson spinning stops in those areas in effort to update his avatar's drip. This isn't the first time that Niantic has engaged in a collaboration with a fashion brand. Just a few months back, a collaboration with Longchamp saw the game introduce new avatar items in the shop and throwing a full-on Fashion Week event as a tie-in. This was during a span of months where Niantic as hosting many sponsored events as well, with brands such as Verizon, GrubHub, Baskin-Robbins, and more. This time, though, there's no tie-in event, so you won't have to make the choice as to whether or not you're going to spend a raid pass on a Trubbish wearing a North Face jacket.  Niantic has announced a new feature in Pokémon GO that can, as they put it, "make your childhood dream come true." The mobile developer behind this hit game that brought the Pokémon universe into the real world will host a competition that will see the winning trainer's avatar become an encounterable character in Pokémon GO.
In their official announcement, Niantic wrote: During the Pokémon GO Tour: Kanto event, you'll see Trainer characters on the in-game map. You'll be able to find and battle these Trainer characters regardless of whether you have a ticket for the Pokémon GO Tour: Kanto event. There will even be special Timed Research that rewards you for battling these Trainers! We hope encountering these Trainers on your Pokémon journey and engaging them in battle will help recreate the original Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green gameplay experiences. Who will these Trainers be, exactly? Well, one of them could be you! This actually follows up on an old datamine that referenced characters that could be battled, such as the Bug Catcher from the original games. We've seen character battles introduced with Team GO Rocket, so this certainly feels like the next natural step. Here are the details on how you can become one of these battle encounters:
Best of luck, fellow trainers!  Burn Drive Genesect debuts in Pokémon GO this week, bringing a new version of this Unova Mythical Pokémon to raids… kind of. Let's take a look at what the different forms of Genesect are and what they mean for trainers looking to complete the set.
In the main series games, Genesect can hold different drives that allow its move, Techno Blast, to take on a different typing. Considering the fact that Genesect is a Bug/Steel-type Pokémon, this mechanic gives this species some battle coverage that it may not have otherwise have. In these games, a single Genesect could hold different drives, as long as it is done one at a time. This will not be the case in Pokémon GO. If you have already caught a Genesect, you will be able to access your Pokédex in Pokémon GO to see what I mean. Much like Niantic treats the different Formes of Giratina and Deoxys as different species rather than a transformation, they will also treat the different drives of Genesect as completely independent Pokémon. When Burn Drive Genesect enters raids, it will be unlocked in your Pokédex for you to see. In order to have a fully completed Genesect Dex in GO, you will need to catch at least one of each Genesect Drive and one of each in their Shiny form. Niantic will treat all of these as independent releases and, even though Normal Drive Genesect is currently out with its Shiny available, Burn Drive Genesect will debut without Shiny capabilities. The only visual difference in these versions is the small drive on its back, pictured above. The drives, which will change Genesect's move, consist of:
 Mega Raids have shifted along with the New Year! Mega Gengar and Mega Charizard X are out, and now Mega Blastoise and Mega Charizard Y have returned. Let's take a look at the top counters to help trainers take down Mega Blastoise, a pure Water-type, which can be encountered in its Shiny form. With this Raid Guide, you can prepare a team to take on the super-powered version of this original starter Pokémon, perfect your catching strategy, and understand Blastoise's 100% IVs.
Top Mega Blastoise Counters Pokebattler, which calculates all possible combinations of Pokémon and moves, lists the top 10 Mega Blastoise counters as such:
It is recommended to power up your counters as much as possible, but creating that amount of strong Shadow or Mega Pokémon with their moves unlocked is a tall order for even the most practiced players. Here are ten additional non-Shadow and non-Mega counters that can help take down Mega Blastoise with efficiency.
How Many Trainers Are Needed? Be careful here. Blastoise is by far the tankiest Mega Pokémon and needs a surprising amount of trainers compared to the others. It is possible for three trainers to complete this raid, but personally, I would recommend five elite trainers with the top counters maxed out. If top counters cannot be guaranteed, going in with six trainers would be a safer bet. Now, just because Mega Blastoise will de-evolve into a regular Blastoise at the catch screen doesn't mean that it's going to be an easy catch. Using the Circle Lock Technique to guarantee Great or Excellent throws, along with Golden Razz Berries, is the best way to catch Blastoise. Essentially, treat it as you would a Legendary Pokémon. Shiny Odds & 100% IVs The Shiny rate for Mega Raid Pokémon is approximately one in sixty. When looking for a Pokémon with the best stats, the 100% IV Blastoise will have a CP of 1409 in normal weather conditions and 1761 in boosted conditions. Happy raiding, fellow trainers! |
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