Catch Mastery: Ice – A Catching Event
Despite nearly missing this event, I quite like the Catch Mastery events. They’ve had a couple of different names over the years, with the last one being called Catch Mastery: Fighting, and other ones being called Research Days and things like that, but the premise is mostly the same. You do a bunch of simple research tasks that involve catching Pokemon, and you’re rewarded a specific one. In the case of Catch Mastery: Ice, the reward Pokemon was Cryogonal.
The research tasks were pretty simple. Most of them involved getting Nice or Great throws, as well as catching Ice-type Pokemon, or Snorunt or Bergamite. In order to increase the desire to get good throws, there was x2 experience on catching Pokemon, meaning you could get a juicy 2200xp on an excellent throw. There were no other catch bonuses, just lots of research tasks. The total number of research tasks was 30, tied together in bunches of three, with an additional Cryogonal encounter after each set of three. This meant you had a grand total of 40 encounters with Cryogonal.
The tasks weren’t particularly hard either. Most of them were “Make Nice Throws” or “Catch Ice Types”. The more annoying tasks were Catch 10 Snorunts and catch 10 Bergamites, especially because those two tasks came directly after two tasks to catch 5 of each Pokemon, and were directly followed by having to catch 10 more Snorunts and Bergamites. While yes, Snorunt and Bergamite were common spawns, they seemed to spawn in patches – I’d see lots of Bergamites, then see lots of Snorunts, but not many of both at the same time.
The last stage was somewhat tricky, as it required you to do 5 great curveball throws in a row, plus one excellent throw and one excellent curveball throw. Luckily, all you really needed was a high CP Bergamite and some nanab berries. Although I did these tasks on a bunch of Cryogonals I had saved from Pokestop tasks.
Yeah, there were also research tasks at Pokestops that also rewarded Cryogonal. These were either make 7 Great Throws, make 5 Great Curveball Throws or make 3 Curveball Throws in a row. The research tasks from Pokestops generally required a bit more effort than the Catch Mastery tasks, but you could easily stack up a few of them.
Now, if you didn’t get the shiny, there was a ticket in the store just for you. For the small price of €2.49, you can redo the entire research quest line for another chance at shiny Cryogonal. That’s an extra 40 encounters. Which is… interesting, but it is a bit mean to all those who did the initial 40 encounters and got nothing. Plus, it’s not guaranteed either. You could easily do those extra, premium, paid-for encounters and STILL not get a shiny.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get a shiny Cryogonal. I did all 40 encounters, plus I opened 20 research tasks that I picked up along the way. I did get a 100% Cryogonal half way through, but that was it. Because I forgot to charge my other phone, I didn’t play on the little account past the first two stages. However, I did manage to catch a shiny Bergamite, and was really disappointed in shiny Avalugg.
I think it would have been nice to see other ice types though. Snorunt and Bergamite are fine, but there are other ice types available. I suppose these Pokemon were chosen because they’re kinda easy to get Nice and Great throws on, but come on, you don’t need to be so stingy with the ice types!
Really though, the real prize was the friends we met along the way. Even though these days I mostly play this game on my own, I actually ran into another player. I’d seen their account in the occasional gym, but today I managed to catch them in a raid, and then managed to catch them in real life. We chatted for a bit, which was nice, before going our separate ways.
Still, I would have liked a shiny Cryogonal. Oh well. At least I got the hundo.