Pokemon Go Guide – How to Prepare For Community Day

Pokemon Go has yet to fade into obscurity and even has improved in many ways since launch. Hard to believe it was two years ago but here we are and now Niantic hosts a monthly event.

The event Community Day is an event that launches globally on a specific day or days. The event itself has a three hour window and event times vary depending on your time zone.

Community Day features a specific Pokemon spawning more frequently around the world, the release of the shiny sprite for the featured Pokemon, an exclusive Community Day move to go along with it, a Lure Module bonus making them last for three hours, and some other bonus of which we have seen so far include faster egg hatches, bonus Exp for evolving Pokemon and bonus Exp for catching Pokemon just to name a few.

Community Day not only presents a good opportunity to catch the featured Pokemon but also gives the opportunity to catch a shiny version of that Pokemon. Shiny Pokemon are not stronger then normal Pokemon but certainly are fun and cool to collect. If you are really lucky you may even catch a perfect Pokemon. Community also presents a ripe opportunity to get to know some of the local Trainers in your area which makes for a very pleasant experience for the most part. Every Trainer I have come across are really nice people.

Community Day is fun but gets hectic if you are not adequately prepared. So today I am going to go over how to prepare for Community Day so you can the be best there ever was!

Plan on What You Want

As of now Community Day is being announced ahead of time. Back in August the dates for Community Days of September, October and December were announced. Preparing for Community Day depends largely on what you want. 

Back in May I speculated that Beldum would have it’s Community Day and rightfully given access to Meteor Mash Metagross’ signature move added to its Move Pool. So I asked myself what do I want from Beldum’s CD? Do I want as many shiny Beldum as possible, collect as many Beldum candy as I can, build up a team of high level high IVs Metagross with Meteor Mash, or interact with my local Pokemon Go community maybe win a Mewtwo raids?

In the end I decided on all of the above making for not only a very successful community day but also a wonderful experience.

All in all it was great day but the results would have been had I not prepared myself.

Preparing For The Occasion

Properly equipping yourself is an essential if you want to make the most of the Community Day bonuses.

For reference purposes we will use Beldum Community Day as an example seeing that it was the most recent Community Day. My objective was collecting as many Shiny Beldum and Beldum Candy as I can. Maybe even catch a perfect Beldum or two.

In my case I have options. But I know for some paying for in-game items is a no no which is fine Pokemon Go really is not a Pay-To-Play game. If your a Free-To-Play Player it just means you have put in some more time and effort. Trust me I have tried it but one Incubator alone is not going to hatch all those eggs at once.

Preparing for Community Day is easy especially for casual players. Most preparations involve activities you already do in the game. In my case I wanted to maximize the amount of Beldum Candy I collect. Pinaps berries and Ultra Balls were my go to items for this Community Day. Since we are notified at least a month in advance planning and preparing is made easier.

Free-To-Play Players and Casual Players should prioritize spinning those Pokestops and Gyms. Take the whole month to stockpile your items. Ultra Balls and Pinap Berries are what I prioritize on hoarding. It certainly is possible to reach well over 200 Ultra Balls and 150 Pinap Berries from playing casually everyday leading up to Community Day. It is certainly worth it might I add. Beldum certainly put a dent on my inventory!

Aside from this tactic you could always just pay for the boxes that are up for offer during Community Day. I have tried this tactic out but out of lack of experience I prefer to collect my items through normal gameplay creating an experience as I walk. Of course there is no consistent method of obtaining a steady stock of Super Incubators so I give in every now and then.

The Day of

Before the actual day of Community Day I highly suggest planning out where you intend to play. Know your area and be safe! Perhaps even try to reach out to your local Pokemon GO community and check out where everyone is heading. Discord is a good place to start.

Once you have your area picked there are a few more things you can do to make it as successful as possible.

For starters revise your storage space for your Inventory and Pokemon and clear it up as needed. It can be a hassle trying to keep up with all the Pokestops and recently caught Pokemon while in the middle of shiny hunting.

Hatching or catching a CD Pokemon long before its CD can help to mitigate the stress of appraising everything in the middle of the event. Even if I already have a perfect CD Pokemon lying in wait I still appraise everything regardless. You never know when you will get that perfect Pokemon.

Shiny check every possible shiny Pokemon though shiny rate encounters are only increased for the featured Community Day Pokemon. I ended up encountering a Shiny Bulbasaur on Mareep Community Day so it’s not impossible.

If you usually find yourself lacking numbers for high tier Raids try to conduct some during Community Day. Community Day presents a perfect opportunity meet up with other Trainers and possibly create a permanent group.

Reaping The Rewards

Up until Beldum Community Day Trainers had 2 hours and 30 minutes to catch as many of the feature CD Pokemon and then use the last remaining 30 minutes to get that exclusive community day move onto their Pokemon.

Fortunately Niantic realized the problem with this and finally gave Trainers up to an hour after the three hour period to get the exclusive Community Day move. So now there is not really much to stress out about. Just note Niantic is very punctual and when they an event is over at a said time its over at that exact said time.

Please I urge every Trainer don’t wait literally until the last minute to evolve your Pokemon for that exclusive move. That evolution animation will stall ya and when that minute runs out that’s it! No exclusive CD move for your Pokemon even if you evolved before the minute was up. Just to clarify as soon as the evolution animation is up thats when your Pokemon’s move gets determined and if the animation ends outside of the event time frame you get no exclusive move.

For some Pokemon you are better off with no community day move at all. For others like Beldum you will want at least one or two Metagross with Meteor Mash.

It’s All About The Community

At the end of the day Community Day is all about the Community. After all you are getting out and interacting with your Community might as well make the most it.

Whether that be in the form of banding up for a charitable cause or just enjoying the experience your local community has to offer. Meet some new people add some more friend codes to your list have fun! Just remember it would not be possible without your community and yes I am talking about the whole local community not just the Pokemon Go community as lovely as you all are.

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