It’s not particularly surprising that, once again, Pokemon Go isn’t really sharing a lot of details about what’s in store for the month of July. Aside from the upcoming Go Fest July 13th-14th, the latest July teaser really isn’t telling us a whole lot. In fact, without any silhouettes to tease potential content, it’s looking like slim pickings.
While Massively on the Go will cover prep and post Go Fest goodness later in July, today we’re trying to pick through the bones of Niantic’s July announcement. Hope you’re hungry for Go Fest, as there may not be much else for a while!
July Content Update ☀️
Raid madness! Ultra Unlocks and more! #pokemongo pic.twitter.com/7TBwquBKeI— G47IX | Pokémon GO (@g47ix) June 26, 2024
Let’s start with the raid situation, as Necrozma’s Go Fest Fusions are absolutely broken for raids, so you may want to be careful on where you use your Premium Passes. While Go Fest will make the Ultra Beasts Global, you’ll have to deal with local raid limitations outside of that event. Guzzlord is basically just for PvP, as are Buzzwole, Celesteela, and Stakataka (if even that for the last two). Pheramosa is a major glass cannon, as is Blacephalon, so they’re basically used for raids if you’re feeling glassy. Nihilego, Kartana, and Xurkitree are safe bets, especially the latter two as their types are more useful. The other two non-UBs aren’t really worth it, aside from limited use for Articuno if you 1) have a good Shadow to power, 2) use it in PvP, or 3) have a good Galarian one you want to power up for kicks.
Shadow Entei comes back for the weekends, and it’s not a terrible Fire type, but July probably isn’t the month to be blowing raid passes here. If you need it, I’d hit it only with free passes July 6th-7th, and probably again after the 20th. With everything else available this month, especially during Go Fest, you’re better off saving your premium passes, especially as we won’t be able to TM Frustration off of Entei to use it for Go Fest.
We don’t normally talk about raid hours, but they’re funny this month thanks to one of the events we’ll cover below. Like Articuno above, the July 3rd Ho-oh raid has limited use, though more so than Arti. Basically, it’s for the Apex Shadow version or PvP use. The Ultra Beast week from July 8th-12th (yup, the whole week for once) is mixed, but July 12th lumps some good ones together across multiple regions, but don’t be fooled! Maybe save remote passes for the weekend, as all Ultra Beasts are available globally the next day.
That being said, maybe a big spender is out there, so we’ll still talk about your options for this “raid hour” – just remember to translate 6 p.m. in your target area to your local time so you can use your raid finder of choice to get raids. Now, unless you’ve had great luck with June’s Shadow Entei and have tons of candy to spare, I’d say focus on Xurkitree. Pheramosa isn’t too bad as Bug needs heroes and she does some heavy damage while she’s up. I love Buzzwole, but it’s got limited raid use, so unless you want a good PvP Fighter/Bug-type, he may get the lowest priority. Articuno still stands with the above comments, but Tornadus just isn’t great, so maybe ease up on that one.
For Mega Raids, if you don’t have Mega Swampert, that is a high priority. It’s on our top 10 list, and I always cringe when players tell me they missed out on it. Mega Aggron is very skippable, maybe even more so depending on how the rest of the month rolls out, as there is a Mega Raid Day being teased but no new pokemon. It could be a normal Niantic oversight, or it could mean more Mega Aggron, which no one really needs when Mega Scizor and Mega Steelix are current options.
#PokemonGoFest Global is almost here!✨
This is a free event, but some parts like additional bonuses, Marshadow, and shiny boosts require a ticket!#pokemongo pic.twitter.com/ZAPR8eWIy9
— G47IX | Pokémon GO (@g47ix) June 26, 2024
While we’ll talk about the rest of the events in a moment, I want to drive home once again that July is mostly about Go Fest. My expectations are quite low after last year, but at the very least, it’ll be a weekend when more people are out playing and trying to get a new, powerful pokemon. For that reason alone, I don’t blame gamers for buying a ticket for the extra passes, wild regionals Maractus and Corsola (just collector ‘mon), and “special” 7k eggs (which are most likely regionals). You also get six special trades per day and supposedly boosted shinies, though the latter always feels like a hit and miss, and no, Niantic doesn’t disclose the odds. Weigh the benefits before purchasing, if you haven’t already.
The rest of the month is a real crapshoot. Aquatic Paradise, obviously a new Water event running from July 6th to 9th. It’s not the Water Festival, which has been absent this year, but an event to kind of “celebrate” the end of the New York Go Fest. We get the debut of shiny Ducklett, while Clamperls for more stardust, and “bonus” spawns from incense (Shellder, Lapras, Frillish, and Fineon, of which Shellder is good for dust, Frillish has PvP uses, and outside of potential Gigantimaxing, Lapras is just cool). It’s short but unless you need that double catch xp or go hard on the stardust bonus ‘mon, it’s probably the weakest of the post-local-Go Fest events we’ve had since June.
July 8th-13th is Inbound from Ultra Space, a new event where each day will have a raid hour from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. local time (as mentioned above), featuring a different Ultra Beast and possibly with a new background (which, like location-cards from live events, just looks pretty and has no effect on stats). The paid event ticket also grants research giving a couple of XL candy for each Ultra Beast, double stardust and XP for UB raid wins, extra regular and XL candy for raid wins, and a bonus Daily Raid pass for the event. The value probably isn’t there for casual players, but for hardcores, especially with tons of passes to use, it scales well with whaledom.
Then we have Go Fest outlined above. Hopefully you have storage space, as I’m sure Niantic will grant some, but it’s been stringy about it lately.
Sadly, most of the next events are Ultra Unlocks with little to no details, such as Better Together from July 17th-22nd. My guess would be this has to do with buddy pokemon, parties, and/or friends, but as usual, we’ll have to wait and see.
During that is the July 21st Community Day will be Tynamo and… yeah. It’s not a big PvE pick, and the PvP use seems questionable right now. It also doesn’t seem to fit the Better Together theme in my mind, so it’s hard to guess what Niantic was thinking here, but then again, that feels on point for the last couple years.
Speaking of points, July 25th-30th is Strength of Steel, yet another Ultra Unlock. Clearly there’s going to be Steel pokemon involved, and some people are wondering if the “Strength” part is related to Steel/Fighting type Lucario. We’ll have to wait and see.
Very much related to that is the July 27th Ultra Unlock Mega Raid Day. Worse case scenario is Niantic tries to encourage more people to raid Mega Aggron. Unless you really like it or its shiny, that could be skippable. However, we’re currently missing Mega Lucario and Mega Metagross, both of which could be at least somewhat useful for their candy generation, and Mega Lucario could be a neat battler for raids and gyms. Again, though, we’ll have to wait and see.
As usual, let’s cap things off with the Spotlight Hours. Unless you love Pikachu or double catch XP, you can probably skip the Spotlight on July 2nd. Double catch candy and Spheal isn’t bad for July 9th if you’re a new player or a shiny hunter, but the main Spotlight here is double Nihilego candy in raids! Yes, we’ll have raid hour and Spotlight at the same time, so unless Niantic screws up, it’s a nice overlap.
July 16th has Binacle, but the main feature is double transfer candy only days after Go Fest. You’ll probably have a lot to sort through, so hopefully get it done Monday night so you can clean house on Tuesday! July 23rd with double Diglett’s cute, but it’s not super useful, and few people really mass evolve anymore, so it’s got limited use unless you’re a Diglett fan or shiny hunting. July 30th has Togedemaru, which isn’t bad, but at lest there’s double stardust, which is always useful.
As always, though, check back for updates, especially after Go Fest when Niantic will probably give more details on the Ultra Unlock events. Stay safe out there, trainers!
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!
