Rowlet Community Day

Another year, another month and another community day! January 2024 starts the year off with Rowlet, the little owl Pokemon. And one of the very few starters with a secondary type. Rowlet is grass/flying, and evolves into Decidueye, a grass/ghost type. Evolving it during the community day will make it learn the exclusive move Frenzy Plant, while it can now also freely learn the move Spirit Shackle. The community day had the same rewards as most other ones: double candy, triple stardust, double chance for XL candy and the 3-hour duration for lures and incenses. Sadly, there was no egg hatching bonus, which sucks because this event started in the middle of an event with a rare chance to hatch a Rockruff that can evolve into the dusk form.

Anyway, what about Decidueye? Well, it’s actually alright. Okay, sure, it’s not as good as any popular shadow or mega Pokemon, but for a grass type, it does the job. Sadly, nothing can beat Kartana, and Roserade is still better, but I haven’t seen a Roserade (or Budew or Roselia) in months and Decidueye actually has some alright typing. The ghost type means you get some resistances against some pretty strong raid bosses, like Terrakion and (when it eventually comes) Keldeo. Sure, Kartana is still miles better, but as a budget Pokemon (assuming you can play the community day), it’s better than a lot of other grass types. Definitely worth picking up a couple.

It’s also not bad in PvP. When Decidueye came out, it had no moves and no good moves either. Brave Bird was your best choice, but it came with a massive debuff and lacked STAB. It’s still a good choice, but Frenzy Plant is so, so much better than Energy Ball. It can also learn Magical Leaf as a fast move, meaning it actually has a chance to generate energy for its charge moves. Originally, it only had Razor Leaf, which barely generates any energy and only really works on glass cannons (grass cannons?) that want to pump out as much damage as possible before dying. Psychic and fighting are both pretty common types in PvP (with the likes of Medicham running around) so ghost is a good secondary type to have.

That being said, its typing is probably way better in the main games, where Normal and Fighting have no effect, rather than being reduced by half.

There’s also Hisuian Decidueye, a grass/fighting type, which is most likely coming in February. Whether it’s any good or not, we can’t really tell, but we won’t be able to evolve a Rowlet into its Hisuian form for a long time. It also almost certainly won’t get Counter (the best fighting move), so it won’t be that useful as a fighting type, and it’s doubtful it’ll get Frenzy Plant, making it weaker than fellow grass/fighting Chesnaught, and also weaker than legendary grass/fighting Virizion. When Hisuian Decidueye does come out, Sky Attack Moltres WILL tear it to pieces, with a double weakness to flying.

As for me, this wasn’t anything special. I already have a lot of grass types, including some level 35 Kartanas, so I didn’t go ham on this one. I’m also pretty low on Pokemon storage space, which meant I was deleting a lot of Pokemon rather than keeping them. Still, this was way, way better than the upcoming Chansey community day. The thought of that just makes me shudder…