On Paying €11 on a 67% shadow Ho-Oh

I’ll be honest. I wasted my money on the Johto tour. Playing it mostly solo wasn’t particularly fun. But at the very least, I’d get some nice Pokemon, right? After all, I got a nice shiny Ho-Oh out of it. However, a big part of purchasing the ticket was to get some cool Apex Shadow Legendary Pokemon. I like Lugia and Ho-Oh, so the idea of getting what is basically Super Ho-Oh and Super Lugia sounded pretty neat.

As I opened up the encounter got Ho-Oh though, it all kinda fell apart. Why? Because I said to myself, “how bad could this Ho-Oh be?”

I cursed myself

Turns out, the Apex Ho-Oh I got WAS the worst Ho-Oh possible.

Honestly, this really made me sad. I’ve been having a bad time getting 3* Pokemon lately. In fact, most of my Mythical Pokemon, one-time catches in particular, all have awful stats. So, really, I’m more pissed off at myself for gambling and getting my hopes up.

Sure, I could lie to myself that my Ho-Oh is just as rare as as a 100% Ho-Oh, but most people only care about shinies and hundo Pokemon.

The research isn’t even interesting.

With the Johto tour we got the Masterwork research, and it’s not exactly interesting. The first stage consists of catching 100 species of Pokemon, earning 100,000 experience and complete 100 research tasks. “Complete 100 research tasks” is particularly bad though. Sure, you get daily tasks, but there’s no real way of speeding things up unless you live in a more populated area.

However, once you’ve done your research task task, part 2 out of 4 is even worse. Earning a heart with your buddy every day isn’t that bad. But this Masterwork research task requires you to get a heart with your buddy daily… FOR 30 DAYS! I get it, I get it, they don’t want tasks to be easy. They want us to work for the research. But time-related tasks are the worst way to do that. It’s obviously saying “fuck off for a month and then come back”. Rather than putting anything enjoyable here. After all, part 1 had 100 research tasks, so why not make part 2 have “earn 100 hearts with your buddy” instead? It feels less tedious and would, ironically, probably get people to buy Poffins for their buddies.

“But Medic, you paid for a shiny Mew as well!”

You’re absolutely right, I did. And my shiny Mew also came out as a 2-star with no real redeeming features. Two out of three Celebis I have also have mediocre IVs. The only Mythicals I own with good stats are the Mythicals I caught in raids, and my initial Mew. But Darkrai, Genesect and Deoxys were all raid rewards, not part of paid special research.

“But Medic, these Pokemon are just trophies.”

I know, I know. They’re just dumb pixels on a screen, and it doesn’t really matter. I mean, neither of them are particularly useful in anything. They both may get some use in the Go Battle League, as they are both still pretty tanky Pokemon, but even then, their stats aren’t particularly good for PvP anyway. Lugia and Ho-Oh are too high a level to be used in Great League and need HUGE investments for the other two leagues.

Really though, I’m just pissed off about getting yet another 2-star special, one-time-only Pokemon.

The bigger question though is whether I will be purchasing tickets for future events or not. I probably will though. Because they are kinda fun. I just have to not get my hopes up.