2000 Team Rocket Battles Later…

It’s only been, what, seven months? But after so much grinding, I have finally done it. I have defeated 2000 Team GO Rocket grunts. In doing so, I have earned the Platinum medal. This means I get one extra Pokeball for catching Shadow Pokemon.

My 2000th battle was against Arlo.

If anything, it wasn’t even impressive. Could have done the fight with my 1499CP Poliwrath, but I couldn’t be bothered. Arlo’s lineup contained the rarely seen Infernape, but ended with Salamence, which would have made the fight a bit tricky for Poliwrath. That being said, I actually defeated all three of Arlo’s team with one Pokemon and no shields used. My 100% Machamp, now powered up to level 43, defeated them all rather soundly. Rock Slide is not just an amazing coverage move, but it also charges super fast.

However, I did kinda get lucky. If Gardevoir had shown up, I almost certainly would have needed a Ghost type on her team. But even then, any Shadow Pokemon with Charm hits like a bag of bricks.

Either way, the 2000th fight went by very quickly, with Wonderchamp just throwing off a ton of Rock Slides and annihilating Arlo’s team. I was rewarded with a 1-star Shadow Beldum which I deleted, because I spent all my candy powering up a Hundo Metagross.

The last 1000 was better than the first 1000.

While I only managed two shadow shinies in my first 1000 Team Rocket fights, I got way better luck in my second 1000 fights. I managed to get two shiny Shadow Scythers, a Pinsir, a Beldum, a Drowzee and a 96% shadow Growlithe. I also added two more 4-star Pokemon to my shadow collection: Magnezone and Metagross. Two genuinely useful Pokemon.

However, I also purified a few Pokemon to get them to 100%. I now have two 100% Wobboffets and a 100% Lairon, who will one day be evolved into a Mega Aggron, should Mega Evolving become easier. The Wobbofetts aren’t anything special, but they’re fun to throw in gyms.

But overall, these fights seem to have gone more quickly as well. Team Rocket grunts are mostly easier to fight. And the Leaders are currently easier than ever. Well, aside from Cliff and his Aerodactyl. Compared to early Leader battles, they’re mostly a cakewalk these days.

Still don’t have the purifying medal though.

I mean, I’m nearly there. I’m at about 450 out of 500. But purifying Pokemon is really expensive. Most of the 1k stardust Pokemon are gone, and only Aron, Zubat, Golbat and Magikarp are around. Even then, they’re stupidly rare and the stardust quickly adds up. But you need 1000 purified Pokemon to get the Platinum medal. Even if you ONLY purified Zubats, that’s still 1,000,000 stardust!

And at the same time, it’s also normally just not worth it. Sure, I like Larvitar, but I’ve spent all my candy powering up the Tyranitars I already have. I often can’t even really spare the candy and 5000 stardust to purify one. I hoped Aron would have been a good middle ground, but most Rock Grunts only ever seem to have Nosepass. And Nosepass costs 3000 stardust to purify.

I’m in no hurry though. Especially since the only benefits are a couple of extra Pokeballs that you rarely need anyway.

Still, it’s an achievement.

I like doing those battles, and getting the platinum medal makes me happy. What makes me even happier though is the shiny Spearow I caught immediately after catching that Shadow Beldum.

Let’s just hope that they don’t add another medal at any point soon. That being said, considering how some people have already hit level 50, level 60 might be even closer than we expect. I really hope not though.