Grubbin Community Day
I do often wonder how Niantic decide on who and what gets a community day and when. For September 2023, we got Grubbin, the small bug type Pokemon that evolves into the bug and electric type Vikavolt. Why did we get Grubbin? No idea. But either way, we got a new shiny and a technically new move.
The bonuses for the community day were alright. Triple catch XP is always a welcome sight, but Grubbin isn’t the easiest to get excellent throws on. Luckily, Grubbin is pretty easy to catch, so you get that extra First Ball experience. There weren’t many other bonuses, but they did give out a free Magnetic Lure for catching 10 Grubbin. This is vital because Charjabug, the middle evolution, requires a Magnetic Lure to evolve into a Vikavolt. This was the one time where the Lures Last 3 Hours bonus was absolutely vital. I ended up evolving all my Vikavolts before 5pm, so I could make the most out of the Magnetic Lures we had already placed.
As for the move, this is a bit of a weird one. Volt Switch is a heavy-hitting fast move, but it’s also very slow. Unlike most community day moves, Volt Switch is a true side-grade compared to existing move Spark. But in some scenarios, Spark is actually a better move. Either way, Vikavolt’s probably better off as a cheap bug type when it comes to PvE. Surprisingly, both Charjabug and Vikavolt got Volt Switch as an exclusive move, similarly to how Porygon2 got tri-attack as well as PorygonZ.
What interests me though is the fact that the PvP winner here is Charjabug. According to this guy’s research, it turns out that the middle evolution is actually the best Pokemon when it comes to PvP. Charjabug has an alright amount of bulk and balances out rather evenly between being bulky and doing damage. On the flip side, Vikavolt is too much of a glass cannon to be of much use in PvP. Glassy Pokemon generally don’t fare too well and die before they can get most of their damage out. This is basically a Great League Pokemon though, as neither evolution is any good in Ultra or Master League.
As for me, I had a pretty good community day. I walked down to town hall and got way too many shinies. I ended the event with 16 shinies, including a high IVs, high CP Grubbin from a random trade. I also managed to finish the Complete 150 Research Tasks task for the Master Ball timed research, thanks to the high density of research tasks to catch 3 Grubbin. I managed to get a shiny Grubbin from my research tasks as well, which was nice. My secondary account, used for raids only, failed to get a shiny Grubbin but caught its second shiny Suicune, as I did a raid with my brother and some friends. We also did a Shadow Zapdos raid (no shinies there) and, for the first time ever, I jumped into an Entei raid which had strangers doing it. I have no idea where or who these other people were, as I was standing directly beneath the gym in question. But me and three strangers ended up doing a random Entei raid.
I had a good community day. While Grubbin isn’t anything special, it is a budget bug type that we can use whenever Hoopa comes back. But that’s kinda all that it’s good for, outside of Charjabug in Great League.