Magikarp Community Day – Meh?

Magikarp seems like a really strange pick for a Community Day. It was the first Pokemon to get a shiny in Pokemon Go. Yet here it is, having a Community Day. But I suppose complaining isn’t too bad. Ever since I started playing in Pokemon Go, I’ve only come across two shiny Magikarps, one of which got traded (and somehow became lucky) and is a Gyarados now.

So a Community Day for Magikarp isn’t that awful. At the very least, it gives people a chance to evolve a Magikarp they’ve had sitting around for ages. At best, you finally get a shiny red Gyarados.

But was the Magikarp Community Day on August 8th 2020 any good? Yes and no.

Spawn rates are great, 3 hour incense is always great, triple Stardust is amazing!

When it comes to actual Community Day things? I can’t complain at all. Magikarp was spawning everywhere, making up about 80-90% of all spawns. Shiny rates seemed to be pretty good as well. Sure, the event started off slow for me (took 45 minutes to get my first shiny) but everyone I knew managed to get at least one shiny.

The stardust bonus though is utterly amazing. Magikarp is an easy Pokemon to catch, meaning you can get stardust quite easily without wasting too many Pokeballs. However, as much as I like stardust, I would have preferred double candy, because Magikarp needs 400 candy to evolve into a Gyarados. That being said, there were so many Magikarp around that this wasn’t really an issue. Weirdly, there was even a research task that gave 6 Magikarp candy for catching 3 Magikarps. Which helps a bit.

The Community Day Move is another PvP special.

Sadly, for those who don’t play PvP, Gyarados’s special move isn’t that useful. Aqua Tail is a low energy, low damage move. In a raid setting, Hydro Pump is a way better option as it does far more damage. For raw damage output, there are better water types that are cheaper to evolve in large amounts or have naturally higher CPs, like water starters or Kyogre.

For PvP though? Aqua Tail is a super spammy move that Gyarados gets STAB with, meaning he can easily break shields and whittle enemies down over time. This is a great move for Gyarados in PvP, because his only STAB charge move beforehand was Hydro Pump, which took far, far too long to charge up.

The €1 quest was alright.

At most, it gave you just about enough to evolve a Magikarp. You get 15 Pinaps and then have to use them on the next stage. And you get two guaranteed good Magikarps. But the last stage involves evolving a Magikarp into a Gyarados. That stage then rewards you with a Gyarados. Honestly, would have been a perfectly fine quest if it didn’t require you to evolve a Magikarp to finish it.

The other rewards though are all worth more than €1. A Rocket Radar, a Poffin and some Incense. I mean, that’s better than most Special Boxes, which cost 480 coins or nearly €5. Still, I say it every time, I wish these €1 quests could be bought with Poke Coins.

The real winners are whoever needed to evolve a Magikarp for the Mew quest.

Remember that secondary account I made? Well, I got enough candy to evolve a Magikarp. I didn’t actually evolve one though. Simply because I’m not at that stage of the Mew quest yet. But I didn’t play for that long and still got enough candy. In fact, my little account actually caught a 100% Magikarp. Couldn’t share that with anyone else though, because <level 30 accounts get different Pokemon CPs than >level 30 accounts.

For people who had literally just evolved a Magikarp though? This event does suck. After so much grinding, it must suck suddenly seeing an event where Magikarp are everywhere. But it does mean you don’t need to grind too hard to get a second Gyarados. And you may have gotten a better Magikarp to evolve. Eventually.

Really though, if you started from 0 Magikarp candy, this event should have been enough to get one Gyarados. An Incense lasts for 3 hours, with one Magikarp per minute. Meaning you’ll get about 180 Magikarp. You need 134 Magikarp to get a Gyarados, so, even if you didn’t use Pinaps at all, you’d be able to get one Gyarados.

The other winners though are the people who put an incense on in the last hour of the event.

For recent Community Days, incense used during the event lats for 3 hours. If you used an incense in the last hour of the Community Day Magikarp event, that incense will still last 3 hours, even after the Community Day ends.

This means you can then get an hour or two of Engima Week spawns. Sure, these spawns aren’t great, but it IS an easy chance at some Beldum candy. And Beldum candy is useful now, since Sierra no longer has Shadow Beldum and Metagross is no longer easily as easily available in PvP.

The downsides? Not really enough freebies and an AWFUL community day box.

Normally you get some freebies with each Community Day. This one however only had a box of 30 Ultra Balls. Which isn’t really particularly useful. We also no longer get regular Pokeballs from our buddies, meaning we have to scour the place for gifts from friends or hope we’re close to Pokestops for regular top-ups. There was also no free Incense, so if you’ve run out of incense and aren’t near anywhere with decent spawns, you’re sod outta luck.

Really, the buddies-bring-Pokeballs thing should have come back. Even if it was reduced to 20 Pokeballs instead of 50.

The worst thing however was the Community Day Box, which contained basically nothing. One single Incense, some Ultra Balls (which were given away for free in a separate box), 6 Star Pieces and the Elite Charge TM. You’re basically paying for the Charge TM.

Overall, good Community Day, but DAMN we need more Pokeballs!

With so many events right now, stocks are running low for everyone. And Magikarp Community Day just makes the Pokeball shortage worse. But the supply of Magikarps were great, and if you could go out and about, then the Community Day was just like any other.

For newer players though, this event was great.