Swinub Classic Community Day

Back in 2019, we had a Swinub Community Day. The event was great and we all managed to get a bunch of Mamoswines, ready for the next dragon boss to come by. Most people didn’t care much for the special move, but we were all glad to finally have one of the best ice types in the game for a while. Since then, we’ve had a few better ice types, but in the same way Machamp is still a great pick, so is Mamoswine. Not the best, but very reliable.

2019 though was a long time ago. We’ve had some Swinub in various events, but nothing like that original Community Day. Which meant that getting new Mamoswines was a little difficult. Yet here we are, in 2023, with Swinub Classic Community Day. And boy was it a good one.

Plenty of Swinub

We played in a small group today, and we caught so many Swinubs. One of the people I was playing with called it a “gang bang of Swinub” and they were pretty much right. There were so many spawns that it was like walking on a massive rug. That’s definitely a good thing because our group went ham on all these Swinub, catching as many as we could. We would clear one area, then move on to a new area. The shiny chances were pretty good, everyone in our group got at least 5 shinies, which is a good haul.

In fact, we caught so many Swinub that I nearly completely ran out of Pokeballs. Of all types. I’d been saving Ultra Balls for the event, and I chewed through them very quickly. I had to stop occasionally and open a ton of gifts in order to restock. It didn’t help though that the Swinubs were pretty hard to catch. I’d hoped that they’d increase the catch rate like they did with Togetic, but they did feel hard to catch.

The move is okay

Ancient Power is the special move for Swinub’s evolution, Mamoswine. But it’s not the best move. The reason why it’s okay is because Ancient Power charges up somewhat quickly, and has a small chance to increase all stats when used. It does also give Mamoswine a bit of coverage. But Mamoswine also has a better move in High Horsepower, which it also has STAB on. However, that’s just for PvP.

In PvE, you want Avalanche on your Mamoswine. It’s the best move Mamoswine has, and it’s the move you’ll be using the most when it comes to raids. With so many dragon type Legendary Pokemon, Mamoswine with its STAB ice move is massive. Sure, something like Galarian Darmanitan is a bit better, but Mamoswine is reliable and easy to get a hold of. The only dragons that can give Mamoswine trouble are Reshiram, a fire type, and Rayquaza if it has flying type moves.

So much stardust!

More importantly though, this was a massive chance to get a massive amount of stardust. In fact, I got lucky. Where I played, the weather in-game was Sunny, meaning that all these Swinubs were weather-boosted, and thus giving more stardust. With a star piece, we were getting over 500 stardust per Swinub. This meant I could finally max out a 100% Mamoswine, and I could spend a ton of stardust powering up my 93% Shadow Mamoswine, which will kick major ass next time a dragon comes around.

I did end up with a lot less stardust than I started with, but I took the opportunity to power up a Pokemon that I will genuinely use on the regular. This classic community day was definitely worth it.