Machop Community Day

Another month, another Community Day. And, amusingly, yet another Kanto Pokemon! It’s actually been a long year of Kanto Community Days, but at least February 2021 brings us Machop. Machop is a great little Pokemon because it evolves into the much-loved and much-used Machamp.

Machamp is a useful Pokemon and this is a great way to get a bunch.

Even though we have better fighting types, Machamp is still third best. But Machamp is actually superior to both Lucario and Conkldurr for a big reason: Lucario and Conkldurr are FUCKING RARE. They are insanely rare Pokemon and it’s hard to get the candy for them. Both Timburr and Riolu are only available in eggs and Timburr is occasionally in raids.

Machop though spawns in the wild and in raids and now is having a community day. It’s also cheaper to evolve a Machamp, thanks to its trade costs – trading a Machoke makes the cost to evolve into a Machamp cost 0 candy! Timburr has the same gimmick, but requires 50 to evolve into its second stage and 200 to evolve into its last stage without trading.

The Community Day move, Payback, is a pretty damn good PvP move.

Being a Fighting type, Machamp is weak to Psychic damage. Payback though is a Dark type move, which allows you to hit back against those Psychic types. This gives Machamp some nice coverage against his main weakness, but also something that does neutral damage against his other weaknesses.

That being said, Rock Slide is still just as good. Rock Slide is also a coverage move, hits hard and does a lot of damage. The difference is that Rock Slide charges up a bit faster, and hits Flying types for super effective damage. So if you missed out on the community day move, Rock Slide is still pretty good. Especially with the likes of Altaria floating around. The downside to Rock Slide is that there are a lot more water and grass types around, which resist Rock Slide.

The perfect opportunity to build a Machamp army.

In fact, Machamp is one of the few Pokemon I recommend getting at LEAST 6 of. It’s great for gym battles and raids and Team Rocket grunts and it’s easy to get hold of.

But for this event, it’s also an AMAZING chance to get stardust AND XL candy. XL candy in general is kinda tricky to get, because it’s all based on luck. But with so many Pokemon around, you’re guaranteed enough for at least a few powers up. And who can say no to triple stardust?

I actually got the little quest this time and it was… okay.

I suppose the three Incense and Rocket Radar are alright rewards, but that’s kinda all I got. No TMs, 3 rare candy and some Machop candy. Far less than what previous community day quests have given. I didn’t even get a poffin. Nothing like the December one (which I regret not getting) but also inferior to prior months’ ones too.

And, honestly, I’m not a fan of evolving 3 Machops into Machokes for no real reason, especially when I’m only asked to evolve one at the end. Plus, that kinda goes against the story that Professor Willow is telling. The ‘story’ is basically Willow recalling a movie he sees about a trainer and their Machop, which they evolve into a Machamp, and says that “oh hey you’re doing the same thing!”.

Need. More. Pokeballs.

There’s a big problem though. We don’t get nearly enough Pokeballs. This wouldn’t be a problem if most of us were walking around and spinning Pokestops, but many people are in lockdown.

Heck, even having a Pokestop nearby and spun every 5 minutes isn’t enough. You can’t determine what you’ll get, and it’s easy to just get 3-4 berries and a gift. Th is means that even if you’re only catching 1-5 Pokemon between spins, you’re still going to be negative on balls. And if you are using an incense, you will be seeing a Pokemon every 45 seconds.

Sure, we get 30 free ultraballs, but that is only really enough to catch one Machamp’s worth of Pokemon. Assuming they don’t immediately burst out of their balls.

Overall, great Pokemon, great shiny and a pretty cool coverage move that has some actual use and allows for a new build rather than being forcibly meta or useless. Considering most of last year’s community days? The only thing I can complain about is the lack of Pokeballs…