 The star of Pokémon Go’s July Community Day is the Hoenn region’s water-type starter, Mudkip.
The event takes place from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. in your local time on July 21. Note that this is a Sunday, not a Saturday, so don’t miss out on your chance to grab as many Mudkips as you can. Swampert, Mudkip’s final evolution, is the second best water-type attacker with its Community Day move, coming second to the Legendary Kyogre. That being said, it’s time to nab as many Swamperts as you can. HOW DO I GET A SHINY MUDKIP? Shiny Mudkips will spawn among the rest of them at about a one-in-24 rate. After this event, it’ll be added to the game’s normal Shiny pool and will only be found at a one in 450 chance, so now is the time to hoard them if you want them! WHAT MOVE DOES SWAMPERT LEARN? Swampert learns Hydro Cannon when evolved during the Community Day event, just like its water-type starter brethren. Make sure to evolve your Mudkips to Swamperts within the time period (one hour after the spawns stop, so 8 p.m.) in order to grab this move. Swampert isn’t super great without it. Pair Hydro Cannon with Water Gun to make it the strongest it can be. HOW DO I MAKE THE MOST OF THIS COMMUNITY DAY? This Community Day also offers tripled catch XP throughout the three-hour period, which means you should consider using a Lucky Egg as you catch all your Mudkips. It’ll rake in the XP as you grab the adorable axolotl Pokémon. Lures will also last for three hours instead of 30 minutes, so dropping down a lure in a nice, shaded area might be a good idea to beat out the heat while still grabbing a bunch of ‘kips. If you’re deciding which shiny Mudkips to evolve at the end of the day, try using one of the new search strings. Sort your ‘mons by “recent” using the lower right icon, then type “4*” in the search box at the top. This will let you know if you have any 100% IV Mudkips. Most people won’t be so lucky, so next you’ll want to type “3*” in the search box, which will show you any recent ‘mons that are 80% or above. Appraise these to see which one is best and then evolve your new buddy!
0 Comments
 An update for Pokémon Go has rolled out to mobile devices that includes a plethora of quality-of-life changes.
Some of them aren’t too noticeable without some sleuthing around, but here are some of the biggest: YOU CAN CHECK IVS WITHIN THE APP NOW Before, players had to use other apps, like PokéGenie, to check the exact percentages of their Pokémons’ IVs. Now, if players use the appraisal system within the app, the team leaders will show each Pokémon’s stats on a bar and give it a star rating. You can even tap the arrows on the left and right of the appraisal to see the next Pokémon’s stats without having to close the screen. Thank Arceus! Pokémon will only get stars if its IV percentage is above 50. Two stars means it has about 66-80 percent perfect IVs. Three means its 82-100 percent. YOU CAN FILTER YOUR POKÉMON BY IV EASILY USING SIMPLIFIED SEARCH FILTERS Pokémon Go always had search features that Niantic didn’t explicitly tell players about. For example, you can tap the magnifying glass icon at the top of your Pokémon menu and type “shiny” to only show your Shiny ’mons, or “legendary” to show all your Legendary ’mons. Simple enough. Now you can look up Pokémon by their star rating, making it very simple to find 100 percent IV Pokémon you may have. Simply typing “4*” in the search bar will yield all of your 100 percent IV Pokémon, making it easy to spot any sleeper picks you may have missed. Looking up “3*”, “2*,” and “1*” will also filter out your Pokémon by those IV ratings as well. The current list of search terms can be found here. LANDING CURVEBALL THROWS IS EASIER ON BIGGER PHONES NOW Before the update, it was harder to land curveballs on phones with big screens. Now Niantic has made it easier, thanks to faster acceleration of Pokéballs and a wider frame of view. If you’ve been struggling to reach that Shuppet, it should be a bit easier now. “NEW ATTACK” BUTTON SHIFTED Trainers playing on smaller phones won’t have to worry about accidentally hitting the “New Attack” button when trying to close out the window anymore. However, if you play on a bigger phone, like an iPhone XR, the button is now in the area you press to close the window. Sacrifices had to be made, I guess. This update also laid the groundwork for Team Rocket to start appearing in the game, so keep an eye out, as we expect them to appear any day.  One of the knocks on Pokemon Go when it launched, and one of the reasons many players lost interest, was its lack of traditional gameplay elements. There simply wasn’t much to do in terms of actual interaction outside of swiping on the screen to throw a Poke Ball or tapping on the screen to battle Pokemon in an opposing gym.
Developer Niantic has made significant strides on that front in the years since the game arrived by revamping gyms, introducing trading, and allowing trainers to battle each other directly, but an update rolling out to iOS and Android this week might be the most substantial the game has seen in its three-year history. On Monday evening, the Niantic Support Twitter shared a video showcasing two of the features that will be included in the Pokemon Go update. The first is an updated appraisal system which, at long last, lets trainers find out exactly how powerful their Pokemon are without having to decipher vague messages from their team leaders. The other is a new minigame that trainers have to play in order to execute a Charged Attack in battle. In addition to these huge overhauls of two of the game’s classic systems, the official patch notes for the update (via Pokemon Go Hub) reveal that trainers will begin to encounter Team GO Rocket Grunts in-game. These NPCs will leave behind Shadow Pokemon when they are defeated, which trainers will have a chance to catch. It’s unclear exactly how this system will work, but all of the mainline Pokemon games revolve around players battling the wide assortment of characters they encounter on their journey. The addition of Team Rocket could bring a whole new dimension to a game that was once little more than a Pokemon catching simulator. Niantic has yet to announce a release date for the update or share any official information about it, but if you’re so inclined, you can grab the APK for your Android device over at APKMirror right now.  The official Japanese Twitter account for the Pokémon GO smartphone game announced on Tuesday that the game is collaborating with One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda and Kumamoto Prefecture's "revitalization campaign" by turning the Straw Hat Pirates statues in the prefecture into in-game Pokéstops. In addition, a Pikachu wearing with a straw hat with a red ribbon (similar to One Piece protagonist Luffy's hat) will appear in the game from July 22 to 29, and the hat will be available as an in-game item for players worldwide.
The Kumamoto prefectural government announced the statues in April earlier this year to commemorate Oda's outreach of 800 million yen (US$8 million) to the prefecture after the 2016 earthquake. (Oda is a native of the prefecture.) Four statues will go up this year followed the another four next year.  Residents living in the Hougang would know that the Punggol Park neck of the woods is an insanely popular hotspot for Pokemon GO players — or whoever’s still playing the outworn mobile game (mostly older folks).
Regardless of the dwindling player base, Pokemon trainers swarming a hotspot en masse remains an exasperating issue for a Catholic church located near the park. Things have gotten bad enough for the management of Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary that a signboard had to be installed on its gate to (max) repel Pokemon Go players from the premises. Presumably, folks have been flocking to the church’s statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary to flick Pokeballs instead of, you know, actual praying. In a picture uploaded online by Facebook user Pawlo Pascual, the signboard warned players not to use the space for “Pokemon games” and be “respectful” to worshippers. A subsequent image showed a group of people standing outside the church property, all of whom are pictured in the stance typical of Pokemon GO players — heads bowed down to their phones with hands ready to swipe up on their screens. If you’re wondering just how bad things can be in Hougang, just remember that the Pokemon GO craze was massive enough back in 2016 for the police to step up patrols along Hougang Avenue 10 after residents started complaining of the noise, litter and traffic issues. It’s unclear for how long the signboard has been up at the church in Hougang, but what’s for sure is that it’s not the only place of worship facing issues with Pokemon Go players. In fact, the increase in foot traffic in churches overseas — thanks to the areas getting tagged as Pokestops — has prompted considerations of evangelical opportunities by bishops and priests.  A few weeks ago, while walking home on the drizzly streets of Manchester I was greeted by a familiar sight: someone was being weird.
A man in his fifties, dressed in standard-dad-issue slate grey cargo pants, black tee, and puddle-stained New Balance, was meandering around the pavement, phone stretched out in front of him in a sort of stiff-armed mummy walk, grumbling and getting under the feet of disgruntled passersby. Twenty meters further down the road and I could see the source of his consternation; he was trying to catch a Bulbasaur. Apart from Fortnite’s peak in the summer of 2018, where everybody was pledging their undying fealty to Jonesy the default skin, I can’t think of a game that’s been played so visibly by so many people as Pokemon Go – even three years after release. Pokemon Go Fest Dortmund 2019 Fast-forward to the weekend of Pokemon Go Fest 2019 and the streets of Dortmund were thick with shambling mobs gripped by the same glassy-eyed concentration and insatiable hunger to catch some ‘Mon. The main venue for the event is the Westfalenpark on the southern edge of the city. As one of the largest inner-city parks in Europe at around 70 acres of green space, it’s a beautiful location. Overlooked by the Florian TV Tower, it has a diverse array of pedicured lawns, colourful flower beds, wabi sabi-style koi ponds, shaded woodland, and a decent sized lake at its bottom end – complete with swan-shaped pedal boats. Over the four days of the festival, around 85,000 of the hardest of the hardcore Pokemon Go fans were packed through the gates – which even at the relatively cheap price of €25 must’ve made a mint – with as many as 200,000 players recorded in the surrounding areas of the city. People had come from everywhere across the world to take part. I spoke to people from Germany, Belgium, France, the UK and US, Australia, Japan, Turkey, and just about any other country you could think of. For the lucky ones that snagged a golden ticket, the curation of the Pokemon catching experience in the park was brilliant, and reminded me of the fantasy that I think a lot of people had when Pokemon Go first came out. Walking through the rose beds at the entrance to the park you were greeted by the Sinnoh starters, Chimchar, Turtwig, and Prinplup, along with summery versions of Pikachu and Eevee wearing flower crowns. But just a few feet away, around the corner, you could sit by a pond and get tons of water Pokemon like Kabuto, Wooper, and Horsea. Being able to so closely map the type of Pokemon you could catch to your real-world surroundings never gets old, especially when there was much variety and so many rare Pokes on offer. And although Niantic games isn’t renowned for its stability, despite a few murmurs about server errors and connection issues, the game largely worked without a hitch the entire time I was there. Outside of the real-life landmarks, the park was split into four main areas: the Steel Factory, Rocky Terrain, Boat Lake, and Mysterious Woods. As well as having different Pokemon appear, Niantic had built big in-flavour structures for each one – like the boat lake had a tropical island that spurted water. Attendees also got a special quest, with the promise of an encounter with the mythical singing Pokemon, Jirachi, at the end. Outside of the sought-after legendary, the real reason that everyone’s there is to hunt down Pokemon Go’s rarest and most valuable commodities: shiny Pokemon. With every encounter there’s a tiny chance that you’ll find an alternatively coloured Pokemon called a shiny. Some of them, like a blue Nidoran male or a green Bronzor, are quite subtle. A golden Magikarp is not. Since so many Pokemon are constantly spawning in the same place you’ve got a much higher chance of catching them at an event like this than anywhere else. I learnt pretty quickly that if a Pokemon isn’t shiny then it might as well live in a bin with the Trubbish. The only exception to this are region exclusive Pokemon like Mr Mime – who’s only in Europe – or Tauros, the US equivalent. Although most people have both of those by now, it’s Torkoal, Pachirisu, Relicanth, and legendaries like Azelf that you really want. You haven’t known awkwardness until you’ve had an enthusiastic Israeli man peruse your comparatively meagre collection of Pokemon in the confined space of an elevator. So I made it my goal to get at least a few decent shinies to bolster my cred. At least I could save some face with a Tropius, who’s exclusive to Africa and parts of the Mediterranean (but conveniently also spawns on the Canary Islands). Pokemon Masters Dortmund itself is a really chill city and just about the perfect place to hold an event like this. Of an early summer’s evening, it feels like the city’s entire adult population is just skating every available surface, sharing crates of beer, or eating ice-cream outside one of the many roadside cafes. With a population of nearly 600,000 people, Dortmund is the eighth largest city in Germany overall, and biggest in the historic province of Westphalia. Easily large enough to comfortably accommodate the visiting Pokemon fans, but not too big that you wouldn’t know anything out of the ordinary was happening. After a successful run in Chicago and other festivals, this is the first year that a Pokemon event in Dortmund has been a ticketed event. This meant that across the four days it was almost like there were two centres to the proceedings: the main play space in Westfalenpark, and three days worth of other players who had already played their day, or were waiting to, traipsing around permanently lured Pokestops and raiding the gyms in the city centre. Every other week, more than 80,000 fans pack into Borussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park – Germany’s largest football stadium. Dortmund’s used to handling influxes of visitors, and the higher ups in local government welcomed the Pokemon challenge. “The agency that came up with the idea of going to Dortmund brought us an official invitation from the mayor,” Anne Beuttenmüller, head of marketing for EMEA at Niantic, says. . “We were very happy with the first event. The park is awesome, there are so many different areas – the rose garden, the playground, the little lake – it’s the perfect spot for players. “And we see players still wanting to experience the atmosphere of having so many players in the city. Because it feels like a takeover, and they want to be in the spirit, so that’s why they’re travelling to the city not having a ticket and just playing in the city.” Throughout my journey to Dortmund there had been clues that something big was happening in the Pokemon world – a man wearing an OG ‘90s Psyduck shirt in Brussels train station, a couple of families with kids in Pikachu onesies – but as soon as I rolled into Dortmund, it was almost like I’d gotten off in a real-life Ryme City from Detective Pikachu – a world full of people who love Pokemon, and are all too happy to wear that on their sleeve. Literally. Every other person is rocking an overt piece of Pokemon merch – mostly Mystic, Instinct or Valor team badge shirts – or is wired up to a cache of power banks dangling from their belts like Pokeballs. Being in a place where everyone is so openly into the same stuff is a comforting feeling, like you could strike up a conversation and be friends with anyone, and that sense of camaraderie was making everyone giddy. Despite its popularity, it’s still rare to come across a raiding party unless you’ve arranged it with friends or through the game’s bustling online community. Pokemon Go is a social game at heart, and it was exciting to find a setting where you could experience all of those multiplayer features to their fullest. Shiny hunting Sometimes however, increased odds are no remedy for old fashioned bad luck. Gameplay in the Westfalenpark lasted from 8AM until 6PM, but by 12:30, I still hadn’t caught any shinies to add to my trade pile. “Good day so far?” a guy in a green Pokemon Go staff shirt asked me by the Team Instinct lounge near the Steel Factory. “A few cool things,” I replied. “But I still haven’t found any shines.” “No shinies?” he said, with a look of incredulous bewilderment like I’d just told him I brush my teeth with polyfiller, scrolling through the few he’d snagged while he’d been sat there. After that exchange I started to go a bit mad – everywhere I looked people were catching shinies. “Hey! This guy’s got pink legs!” an older American gentleman with his family exclaimed in the rocky zone. “That’s Shiny Scyther,” his oldest kid said, rolling their eyes. “And pop’s using a Pokeball,” a younger boy chimed in, “use your Ultra ball!” Further around the corner I overheard someone else say they were happy with the golden “Onixes” they’d caught. The pluralisation was another slap in the face. And then it happened. Back in that first summer of Pokemon Go, there was one that got away. After tracking an Aerodactyl for half an hour through the small town where I was living, it despawned before I could catch it. I ran for that Aerodactyl. Children laughed at me and called me sad. It was brutal. I hadn’t seen another until one popped between the trees next to the Mysterious Woods. Instantly I knew I’d hit the jackpot. When a shiny appears you see a flash of stars just to let you know things have gotten serious. Taking no chances, I plied the shiny Aerodactyl with enough berries to knock out a Donphan and threw ultra balls like they were going out of fashion. Before long the giant purple rock bat was mine and he’s awesome and I love him. By the end of the day I’d managed to bag 13 shinies: a couple of Scyther and two Larvitars were the other highlights. As I left, I got chatting to a Belgian man wearing bright blue camouflage I’d met earlier in the car park, and asked to see his haul. “I got 20 shinies here,” he said, gesturing to the phone in his left hand. “And 20 more here, and here,” lifting up another two in his right. He invited me to trade to complete one of the day’s quest objectives, and offered me a Torkoal he’d caught from Kuala Lumpur (from a fourth Pokemon phone he retrieved from his car) but refused to take anything special in return. I thought that summed up the vibe of the whole festival. Pokemon has always been about sharing the fun of collecting with friends, and here there were people from all corners converging on a fun place to swap stories, show off their curios, and enjoy their favourite hobby with other fans. It might have only been for a weekend, but Go Fest 2019 was a real glimpse into a world obsessed with Pokemon.  The Legendary Pokemon Mewtwo has returned to Pokemon Go for a limited time. Following Groudon's departure from the game, the powerful Psychic-type is back again in Raid Battles through the end of July, and this time around, it's donning some special armor.
To coincide with the Japanese release of Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution, a CG remake of the first Pokemon movie, every Mewtwo you encounter in Raids will be wearing its armor from the film. This marks the first time Armored Mewtwo has appeared in any Pokemon game, so you won't want to miss your chance to catch one. Along with its different appearance, Armored Mewtwo has more defensive stats and is capable is knowing different moves than its standard form. Armored Mewtwo will appear in five-star Raids until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST on July 31, so you'll have until then to add one to your collection. Despite its different stats and appearance, the Pokemon is still a pure Psychic-type, so your best bet is to bring along Dark, Ghost, and Bug Pokemon such as Darkrai, Giratina, and Scizor when you challenge it in battle. If your team manages to defeat Mewtwo, everyone who participated in the Raid will earn a chance to catch it. Mewtwo isn't the only Legendary making an encore appearance in Pokemon Go this month. As a reward for completing enough Global Challenges during the recent Pokemon Go Fest event in Dortmund, Germany, Niantic is bringing Entei back for a special Raid Day on Sunday, July 14. The Legendary will appear in five-star Raids from 4-7 PM local time, and you'll be able to capture its Shiny form if you can come across one. While Groudon may no longer be available in Raids, you can still encounter one through July's Field Research tasks. The next Pokemon Go Community Day is also just around the corner. This month's event takes place on July 21 and will feature Mudkip, the Water-type starter from Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire.  On July 9, 2019, Niantic announced that many Pokemon will be receiving new moves in an effort to make Trainer Battles more interesting.
Starting on the next update, these Pokemon will learn new moves:
In addition, two new moves will be added to the game: Charm, a Fairy-type fast move, and Skull Bash, a Normal-type move that lowers the user's Defense.
UPDATE: It seems as though some trainers have received the new moves ahead of this update's release. Several players have uploaded images of their own Pokemon with Charm, currently in the game as move_name_0320. After a brief moment of the moves being unavailable again, it seems as though they are indeed obtainable. Full Announcement Text Trainers, In our previous Community Note, we outlined some changes that came to Pokémon GO that affected your Pokémon’s performance in Raid Battles, as well as other additions to the game. In this update, we’re excited to announce more changes, focusing on Trainer Battles! In a continued effort to make Trainer Battles a fun and competitive experience, switching Pokémon will now briefly pause the battle. This will grant you more time to choose which Pokémon to call out, and it will avoid Pokémon causing damage to each other while they are withdrawn into their Poké Balls. Charged Attack gameplay will also be updated with new, fun swiping and tapping mechanics. (Want to know more? Check out our Niantic Help page for more info.) More attacks will also be coming to Pokémon GO! The following Pokémon will be able to learn attacks they couldn’t before:
Attacks New to Pokémon GO Certain Pokémon will soon be able to learn attacks that hadn’t yet been seen in Pokémon GO!
We’re excited to see the teams you build with these changes, Trainers. Stay tuned, as we’ll be sharing more updates like these in the future. Good luck on the battlefield! —The Pokémon GO team Pokémon Go Legendary Pokémon: List of all currently and previously available Legendary Pokémon7/9/2019  Pokémon Go Legendary Pokémon had been hotly anticipated for some time, eventually arriving a full one year after the game released. Fans of the classic games will remember them fondly - from the flying trio Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres to the elusive Mewtwo and Mew in Red, Blue and Yellow to Gen 2's Gold, Silver and Crystal, Legendary beasts Raikou, Entei, Suicune, and beyond. These are amongst the game's rarest creatures, and can be caught from multiple sources - from Raids, the Legendary Lunch Hour event to Field Research rewards - depending on the month in question. All Legendary Pokémon currently available in Pokémon Go Legendaries are primarily caught in Raid battles, and much challenging than standard encounters, so will require as many players as possible to take them down. Living in major cities with gyms at popular landmarks will naturally attract players without organising before hand - just look out for the blue and white Egg, and get there for the countdown, and provided you are in a popular spot, other players should be there waiting for it to begin. Otherwise, joining Facebook or Discord groups for your town or area is a popular way to organise groups. In battle, you essentially want to field powerful Pokémon with strong opposing Types. You can also get Legendaries by completing a week's worth of Research quests. Like Legendaries in Raids, these rotate regularly, and focus on previously released Legendaries for those who missed them. Finally, Gen 4's Azelf, Uxie, Mesprit buck the trend and appear in the wild around lakes and other water features as extremely rare wild spawns, as well as being in Legendary Raids. How to catch Legendaries and how to unlock Legendary Raids in Pokémon Go Ninatic finally unlocked Legendary Pokémon in Pokémon Go following Pokémon Go Fest. Summer 2017 saw Legendary birds Moltres, Articuno and Moltres come and go, with Legendary beasts Raikou, Entei, Suicune here for Autumn - and the start of a Gen 3 Legendary rollout over the winter, starting with Groudon. Though they are similar to standard Raid Battles in many ways, there are several differences in both their appearance and capture:
How to capture Legendary Pokémon Like other Raid encounters, once a Legendary's defeated you have to then catch it. This is difficult seeing as, according to research available from Pokémon Go community The Silph Road, your chances are pretty slim.
With the above in mind, what can you do to increase your chances of catching Legendary Pokémon? It's recommended you:
The history of Legendaries in Pokémon Go Before we even heard their presence was confirmed in the big Gym rework, we already knew the various Legendaries were in the game. That's thanks to some good old-fashioned datamining. NesstendoYT on YouTube was one major player, who dug through the game's files to discover that the above first generation Legendary Pokémon are indeed listed in the game: Their absence in the game led to plenty of speculation, particularly with one of the strongest and most famous Legendary Pokémon - Mewtwo - being the focus of one of the game's first trailers, showing crowds of people teaming up to fight it, whittling down its health as a timer ticks down before capturing the Pokémon in a packed Times Square, suggesting that Mewtwo and other Legendaries could be unlocked through public events rather than random encounters. That's since been confirmed of course - but it's interesting Mewtwo pops up again at the end of the trailer... maybe that's the Legendary Raid that needs to be tackled in Chicago? As for Gen 2's Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Lugia, Ho-oh and Celebi, they've appeared in datamining efforts, too, with their stats showing up alongside the likes of the birds, Mew and Mewtwo. These stats reveal them to be among the best Pokémon in our Pokémon Go tier list, with Mewtwo and Ho-Oh having some of the highest base attacks in the game, more so than existing creatures Alakazam and Dragonite. The datamine also revealed that these creatures have no capture rate at all, so perhaps that lends itself to the theory that Legendaries will automatically be caught after defeating them in a Legendary Raid? We knew for some time that Legendaries were coming, but what's the story, and how did we get to this point? When did we think Legendaries were coming? The Legendary teases: In an interview with Wired Germany (via Den of Geek, Niantic CEO John Hanke said "with certainty that we will see [legendaries] more this year" - so that at least narrowed it down to 2017! The biggest suggestion to date came from a five word acceptance speech from Niantic during the 21st Annual Webby Awards: "This summer will be legendary", a heavy hint we were set to see something soon: That seemed to have been corroborated by the latest trickle of information, where Niantic suggested that "Legendary Pokémon and battles between players" were set to arrive some time this summer.
Whether this was going to happen at the same time as the implementation of the new Raids feature or a little while after was unknown, although things certainly did at least appear to be tying together quite nicely at that point. The first Legendary Pokémon spotted in Pokémon Go - but how did it appear? Back in early August of 2016, before any of this official news was even close to being announced, a player topped a Gym in Ohio with an Articuno, which is said to be the first Legendary appearance in the game. Multiple players verified the sighting, but how the player got the creature is in question. Amazingly, the owner claimed she received the Pokémon as part of an apology from developer Niantic after contacting them via email about an issue. Other possibilities could be an exploit that has edited the creature's data to appear in the game, an error that has seen one spawn accidentally, or a glitch turn another Pokemon into the famed Legendary, similar to a case reported by a user who had their wild Caterpie transform into a Charizard once in their possession. What else we know about Legendary Pokémon in Pokémon Go Finally, it's also worth pointing out - for history's sake, at the very least - that all this time there's been a hunt of Legendary Pokémon in plain sight, with users who have progressed to level 5 and interacted with a gym find themselves invited to one of three teams - Team Instinct, Team Mystic, or Team Valor - which are shown to be tied to Zapdos, Articuno and Moltres respectively. Could participating in teams play a part in how you unlock these particular Pokémon? It could still be the case that those Legendary Birds are tied to special Team-specific Raids at some point down the line. The addition of Pokémon Go's Buddy system also paves the way for players to earn Candy and power up rare creatures without the need to catch any more - perfect for ultra rare Pokémon such as Legendaries. Meanwhile, the eventual arrival of Ditto - which was just as elusive as the Legendaries for sometime - is at least a sign that Niantic have been slowly working their way towards introducing all of the game's missing Pokémon. In the meantime, an upcoming update will introduce Pokémon trading to help flesh out the gaps in your Pokédex, and our Pokémon Go guide, tips and tricks page to pick up a few pointers you might not know.  Pokémon GO players will soon be able to fight against Armored Mewtwo in Raid Battles, while Niantic Labs teases the arrival of the infamous Team Rocket to the mobile game.
The armored version of the iconic Psychic-type Pokémon is found in the franchise’s anime and manga, but previously not in its video games. In the anime, the armor amplifies Mewtwo’s psychic abilities, functioning like a portable version of Professor X’s Cerebro. Meanwhile, in the manga, the armor allows Giovanni to control Mewtwo, similar to how it was controlled in Detective Pikachu. The appearance of Armored Mewtwo in Pokémon GO, as seen in the video released by Niantic Labs, appears to be based on Pokémon the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution, which is set to launch this year as a reimagining of the original film that was released in 1998 in Japan. While Niantic Labs is setting up the addition of Armored Mewtwo to Pokémon GO, it is also busy preparing for trouble, as Team Rocket is apparently on its way to the mobile game. At the end of the first ever Pokémon GO Fest at Dortmund, Germany, the attendees were asked to gather for the customary event photo. From the horizon emerged a hot air balloon, which is a form of transportation that has been linked to Team Rocket. The hot air balloon was not shaped like Meowth, and was instead mostly black, but the red Team Rocket logo was unmistakable. This is not the first time that Niantic Labs hinted at that Team Rocket is on its way. Last month, after Pokémon GO Fest in Chicago, photos taken with the game’s AR mode started showing Team Rocket gang members. Last week, the official third anniversary artwork of Pokémon GO showed two shadowy figures that look like Team Rocket members hiding in the trees. Exactly what will unfold is still anyone’s guess, but it looks like Team Rocket will play a huge role in the next major update for Pokémon GO. |