Wyrdeer Raid Day
Raid Days vary, and today’s one was kinda basic. Wyrdeer is the Hisuian evolution of Stantler, a (rather ugly, sorry) normal type introduced in Generation 2. In Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Stantler evolves into Wyrdeer by using a specific move with the agile style a fuckton (i.e. 20) of times. In Pokemon GO, Stantler can’t evolve, and instead you can only catch Wyrdeer in this weird raid day. It came complete with a supposed 1/10 shiny chance, but no special moves or anything like that. As always, we got our 5 free raid passes, plus one if you had one from the other day, and the maximum amount of remote raids you could do was increased from 5 to 10. I think there was an increased chance in Rare XL Candy too, since I got 3 today.
Wyrdeer isn’t anything special, sadly. It’s Normal/Psychic, which does give it a unique resistance to Ghost and Fighting, but Dark and Bug still absolutely destroy it. This was a good chance for people to use their Mega Tyranitars, although I decided to use Mega HUNDOom. Because he’s the bestest boy. And, frankly, these raids were easy. They were only 3* raids, meaning they could easily be soloed by a level 35 player using Dark type Pokemon. Other good Pokemon to use are normal Tyranitar and Hydreigon. You could have also used Mega Scizor here.
In combat though, Wyrdeer doesn’t bring much to the table, despite being available for both Great League and Ultra League without needing anything crazy. There are far better Pokemon for PvE, including glass cannon Alakazam and, of course, Mewtwo, but even things like Lugia do better. In PvP, while its typing is okay, it just doesn’t get a good combination of moves and doesn’t have that much bulk, something you certainly need most of the time. You’re better off using a pure Normal type, which only has one weakness, doubly so because Pokemon like Lickitung and Snorlax just have better moves. Stomp, Psychic and Megahorn are all bad moves, and Wild Charge doesn’t offer much coverage and lacks STAB.
What’s more weird about the raid day was all the additional bonuses. There were two catch reward tasks, one for trading a bunch of Pokemon and one for catching and evolving a bunch of costumed Pokemon. These rewarded a Wyrdeer and a Psyduck in a santa costume similar to the Pikachu one. I thought that Psyduck would be restricted to a paid research, so it’s nice to get one for free.
The biggest bonus though was FIVE special trades today, instead of the normal one. We only got one extra special trade on the Community Weekend, where we were expected to do way more trades. I managed to do a lucky trade with a friend I haven’t seen in months and got a 12/12/12 shiny Venusaur, literally the worst result possible. Good on them and their 98% though. I also used the guaranteed lucky trades from Pokemon from before December 2018 and got… more crap. Seriously, I did 5 guaranteed lucky trades and not one of them had a 15 in any stat. Or a 14. THAT’S how unlucky I’ve been lately. Meanwhile brother gets his 7th Shundo, a Larvitar this time, and the second shundo he’s gotten off me, his previous one being a Metagross.
As for me, I caught two shiny Wyrdeer on my little account, in 7 raids. I did 11 raids on my main account and caught nothing good. Didn’t even get a large one to put in a showcase.
Oh well, I can take solace in the fact that Wyrdeer isn’t very useful. Maybe I’ll spend 40k stardust and trade one over from my little account tomorrow, after having wasted all my lucky trades today.