The Nicest Community Day Ever

When it comes to Community Days, lately, most of them have been meh at best. However, in a bid to make lots of money and get people outside, June’s Community Day was Deino, the dark and dragon type Pokemon. A pseudo-legendary Pokemon with a lot of bite and a great special move. Turns out, if you have an interesting Pokemon for community day, then people turn up.

Actually felt like a Community Day

A good Pokemon and people out to catch it. Deino’s day ticked a lot of boxes. We got a cool, rare shiny on a cool, rare Pokemon, and spawns were plentiful. And of course, as is tradition, part of the Community Day lagged the hell out, with insanely long loading times and weird bugs. Doing a trade would glitch out and, for me, I couldn’t open the Friends tab. In some areas, the game would just not work at all. Won’t be surprised if there isn’t a make-up event after this.

There was something else though that made this community day different. It wasn’t just Deino that was spawning, Zweilous was spawning as well, if you used enough lures. Unfortunately though, the Zweilous were not shiny-legible and, while yes, they did give some great XL candy, they also got in the way of potentially shiny Deino spawns. Still, it’s a neat idea, and it’d be nice to see this again, perhaps with the first evolution being shiny-legible, with the same odds as the basic Pokemon.

A really nice, laid back event with some new friends.

Despite it only being three hours long, we didn’t seem that rushed. It wasn’t until the last half an hour that we sped up and started catching everything we could. One of us spotted a 98% Deino and we all scrambled for it, right down to the last few seconds. Thankfully, we all managed to catch the 98% Deino.

However what really stood out was that we made some friends. We ran into not just a few older friends, but also two new friends, American tourists who were having a lovely time. We had a small cloud of buddies all playing together and sharing catches. There were some good IV Pokemon to be had, and we’d tell each other which ones have high IVs. With the dense spawns, 6 people looking for good IVs is way better than one or two people.

The nice American guys also offered us some regional Pokemon, since we all had extra special trades. We offered Community Day shinies in return (mostly shiny Eevees, which I have a ton of) and I ended up with a lucky Bouffalant, from sheer good luck.

Really, it was refreshing and fun, having a chance to see things from a tourist’s point of view. We all got on really well and finished the day on a high note, with a 98% Deino just before the Community Day ended. All the while, we’d spent a lot of time just talking and catching, as well as finding shade. Our American friends both said how this felt like a real community day, how a community day should work, and I totally agree.

Post-Community Day bonuses

There’s also a nice new bonus with this event. After the Community Day ended, we got a ton of Zweilous raids, which, if beaten, would spawn more Deinos. But honestly, after 3 hours of catching, none of us really had the energy to do more raids and catch more Pokemon. Plus, we were all low on battery, and brother’s phone dipped down past 10% charge.

We didn’t really need the after party though. We’d all caught plenty of good Deinos, ready to evolve. So we just evolved those instead.

Another downside was the €0.99 ticket. It was very lackluster with its rewards and only had three encounters. Amazingly though, I got a 100% Hydreigon from this research. Which is nice, I guess. But I kinda wanted more valuable stuff in something that I paid real money for.

What about Deino?

Oh. Good point. I forgot about that. Deino is cute, Zweilous is neat and Hydreigon is good too. While I wouldn’t consider it better than Rhyhorn and Rock Wrecker gameplay-wise, it’s definitely worth having a few Hydreigons, as Brutal Swing makes for a really, really good charge move. Sure, we have lots of good dark types anyway, but one more can’t hurt.

Overall, I had a lovely day, and I hope that the next Community Day is just as pleasant.