Thoughts on the December Community Weekend of 2020
December Community Day events are always interesting. Unlike previous months, which featured one Pokemon, December ones feature the whole year’s lineup. In 2018, this was quite a treat, as the Pokemon in the 2018 community days were ALL incredibly good. 2019 was also pretty good, since the 2018 Pokemon were in raids and eggs, and, again, almost all the 2019 featured Pokemon were great. Aside from Slakoth.
2020 though is a different story.
Most of 2020’s community days have been… weird. The Pokemon are almost ALL Kanto ones. The only exceptions are Piplup and Seedot. Everything else is completely Kanto, except for the evolutions of Magmar, Electabuzz and Rhyhorn. There were also two repeat Pokemon whose shinies were already available: Charmander and Magikarp. Charmander actually got its second community day. Heck, Squirtle and Bulbasaur both potentially could have had second community days as well, has we not voted for Rhydon and Porygon instead.
All the special moves have all been focused on the PvP side of things as well. Then again, the majority of the Pokemon featured got interesting moves that, well, don’t really do that much outside of PvP. Sure, Aqua Tail, Shadow Punch and Drill Run are all good moves. But the other moves are so niche that there’s barely any room for them. Electavire and Magmortar are nonexistent in PvP and Shiftry’s special move is actually worse than existing options. Even Charizard with Dragon Breath is insanely niche, and only really works with its fire/dragon type mega evolution. Which isn’t allowed in PvP yet.
The only thing really worth getting is Rhyhorn.
Out of all the community day moves this year, only Rock Wrecker is particularly interesting. Okay, sure, Hydro Cannon is nice on Empoleon, but it’s also available on a bunch of other water starters. And will probably be back on the Gen 5 and 6 water starters too. So if you don’t get an Empoleon, then you’re not really missing out on that much. Rhyperior’s signature move though is a stupidly strong move in both PvP AND PvE, making Rhyperior one of the best rock attackers around.
Luckily, the Rhyhorn spawns weren’t too bad, but spawns mostly seemed weather-dependent. For a long time, I was mostly seeing Gastly and Weedle, because the weather was cloudy, but when it became partly cloudy later on, the Rhyhorn spawns improved with it. That being said, MOST of the spawns seemed to be Seedot and Weedle, the smaller and easier to catch Pokemon.
Nothing but 2020 Community Day spawns.
On the plus side, at least all the spawns are genuine community day ones. Literally nothing but 2020 Pokemon. Which is actually very nice, because it means you have a chance at getting plenty of shinies. The actual Community Day parts themselves, with the boosted shiny chances, were on both Saturday and Sunday, with the 11 Pokemon split between two days. The first day had Rhyhorn, Piplup, Weedle, Seedot, Gastly and Abra. Sunday featured Charmander, Magikarp, Electabuzz, Magmar and Porygon. A very Kanto-themed day.
Although, to be fair, this event is pretty much just another Kanto event.
This does mean you can focus on what you want. But if you don’t get what you want, well, you’re kinda screwed. The good 1 in 25 chances are only during available between 11am and 5pm, even if the moves are available from evolving all day. Somehow, despite playing for the entire 6 hour period, I only got one shiny Rhyhorn and my baby account (which only plays on community days now) failed to get a single shiny Piplup – the only one I wanted on that account.
The worst thing though? No 2018 moves.
For the 2019 Community Day weekend thing (I never know what to call these), you could evolve Pokemon from the 2018 Community Days and get their moves. This year, despite having three years of exclusive moves, only allowed us to get the 2019 and 2020 moves. Sure, we were given an elite TM for free, but that one TM doesn’t really cover the 11 Pokemon of 2018 who almost all got strong moves. (Really, only Pikachu sucked as a community day in 2018.) You’d need at least 15 elite TMs to get one of each of the community day moves of 2018. 10 if you exclude the Eeveelutions and Pikachu.
These moves have been locked off. Why? To be sold to us later. There’s no way right now to get a Meteor Mash Metagross aside from trading for one or using an Elite TM. And before you say “that’s not what’s gonna happen”, it’s already happening. Already, the exclusive moves for Venasaur, Blastoise and Charizard are being sold as part of the Kanto ticket, which costs €12.
The weird choices for Community Day Pokemon for 2020 aren’t that bad. They’re not a problem at all. The REAL downside is locking off stupidly powerful moves behind paywalls, when it would have cost nothing and generated plenty of good will to include them alongside the 2020 and 2019 moves. But no, we just need to buy more elite TMs.