November may be the release month for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but don’t count Pokemon Go out just yet. The November events are up, and not only will the ARG be celebrating the remakes’ release, but it’ll also herald several other notable events, including a new holiday and the global release of one that was previously regional.
As usual, details on many of the events are scant, but between past events, data mining, and real-world influences, there are a few details we can tease out. There are some holdovers from October that will make the start of November fairly strong for raid fans, but the rest of the month is debatable at best.
For raids, Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion are coming back from November 5th-16th, but even if they all get Sacred Sword, they’re not very useful. Darkrai returning once again plus Cresselia (Nov 16th-Dec 1st) may be of interest, but we’ll get to that later. For Megas, Mega Absol, Mega Manectric, and Mega Lopbunny will be coming back, though Absol (like Darkrai) is a holdover from its October release. Absol is kind of the weak link here, Lopbunny is quite useful for getting extra candy, and Manectric is our best Mega Electric type for battling at the moment, though I’d argue most players may want to simply Mega once and walk their way to additional energy rather than use passes to farm energy.
As previously mentioned, Shinx will get its Community Day on November 21st from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time as usual. Poor Vullaby is our breakthrough research award this month, and being a Flying-type, it may not appreciate the Flash Pokemon being out en masse. Interestingly, though, Shinx’s featured move is a new Psychic Charged move, Psychic Fangs (which Vullaby resists). It seems to be a slightly stronger version of Poison Fang at the moment, and since it’s a non-STAB attack, this makes Shinx’s CD more of a collector/PvP event. The 1/4 egg hatching bonus is OK (mostly benefitting Niantic’s ability to sell incubators), but there are two new bonuses: 3x transfer candy and 4x chance to get XL candy. In practice, Niantic’s XL candy multipliers tend to be additive, meaning a situation where you’d get 2 XL candy becomes 6 XL candy. (We have asked PR for clarification and will update this should we hear back.)
DÃa de Muertos (November 1st-2nd) is coming back, but this time for “trainers around the world.” Last year, PR told us that the event was limited to mostly Latin American countries. While many of the spawns were considered suboptimal, Litwick was more common. As it’s both a popular and a useful pokemon, we’ll hopefully see more of it in other regions this year, but we’ll have to wait and see what’s going on after Niantic gives us the full details. 10/25 Update: We’ve got more details on the event. It’s a kind of weird hybrid, where everyone gets 90-minute lures and incense, a collection event with a Shedinja reward, and free avatar shirt, but only trainers in “Latin America and the Caribbean” will get +1 transfer candy and event pokemon in the wild plus attracted to lures/incense. Which specific countries those are, we’ve once again asked and will update should we learn more. Houndour, Sableye, Yamask, and Alola Marowak are the main features, so at least no one’s missing out on Litwicks. November 1 will also be an all-day PvP Battle Day, awarding 4x Stardust.
A Festival of Lights event (November 5th-14th), which was hinted at by data miners, is also expected, but details are sparse beyond the likelihood of its featuring Dedenne. It seems to be based on the holiday Diwali, suggesting that Niantic finally understands that holidays are more global than ever and aren’t trapped within the borders of single countries. We’ll have to wait and see what Niantic will do with this event at a later date.
11/1 Update: And we have information now on the Diwali event. As mentioned, Dedenne will debut. Of the wild spawns, events, and egg hatches, Darumaka and Litwick are your main targets mostly via the wild (with Daru also being a research reward), though as mentioned, Electrike will be out for people who need a good Mega Manectric. Friendship will be gained at double speed during the event, and players can open 45 gifts per day. The event will have more going on starting November 9, when there will be more Team Rocket around while also allowing players to finally TM away frustration.
The previously noted Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Celebration event (November 16th- 21st) also offers scant few details, but as we know Cresselia is coming back the same day as the event starts, perhaps it will get its signature move or possibly another move to spice things up.
Finally, The Season of Mischief’s ending event (November 26th-29th) is being billed as something pretty big. Might the Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl theme mean we’ll finally get the ability to change Giratina’s forme as part of the event?
As for the usual stuff, raid hours (Wednesday at 6 p.m. local time) are still happening, without any surprises. Yes, all the Swords of Justice will be sharing November 10th, so plan accordingly if there’s a particular one you want. And we’re still getting our weekly 1 coin Raid Passes in a weekly box.
Unless you’re big on starters (especially Sinnoh starters to match the remakes’ release), the spotlight hours in November are fairly lackluster. Chinchou’s evolution Lanturn may have some Great League use, but I’d save transfers for the previously mentioned Community Day bonus as they’re higher and give more XL Candy. Any interesting research pokemon, however, should be saved in your stacks for November 2nd or 30th. Additionally, those with Meltan boxes who still haven’t been able to max one out (or need XL Candy or want to harvest some) may want to pop their box on November 2nd for the raid hour so as to transfer bad ones during Community Day.
As always, we’ll update this guide with more on the events as details emerge!
Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!
