Pokemon Go’s previously mentioned Bidoof events in June are actually spilling into July with Bidoof Breakout event. While Bidoof will be taking over all levels of raids, spawns, and Rocket Pokemon, and even seeing its own PvP Cup (yes, Master Leagues and Elemental Cup will still be available), it’ll also offer the first Special Research with branching paths that change your questing experience. It’ll be free. And it’ll include a hat. Oh, and 4x XP gains (or 8x if you use a Lucky Egg).
But that’s not all that’s going on: Beyond Tepig Community Day on July 3rd, the Go Fest 2021 event, and the oncoming dread of rollbacked COVID changes, Niantic’s throwing a few curve balls to us in July, and I don’t just mean Research Breakthrough Rufflets all month long (with Remote Passes, again!).
In terms of Mega Pokemon, Niantic’s emphasizing fire, but it is interesting to see Gengar too. While I know some cultures have haunted houses in summer, it seems to me that Japan at least did these more in late July/August, but it’s still nice to see it coming back, as Gengar is one of the stronger Megas and the only Ghost-type available. I also want to note that Charizard’s Mega Energy comes from X or Y, so if you’ve evolved one already, you can simply walk it to gain Mega energy for both variations. Interestingly, this may be the first month since the August 2020 release of the feature to not introduce a new Mega form, outside of the November Update that added many quality-of-life changes to help fix the feature’s disastrous launch.
We also aren’t getting any known Rocket updates this month, but you can continue working towards Shadow Ho-Oh if you haven’t gotten it yet.
Speaking of Megas, three of the four spotlight hours (the Tuesday 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. local time events taking place every week) in July feature pokemon with a Mega form. Tuesday, July 6th, is Bulbasaur, and you’ll earn double XP for catching. July 13th is Charmander night, and you’ll earn double catch candy. I will note that some may want to use double candy events for Meltan catching via Mystery boxes, though as Charizard does have those two Mega Forms, people may want to focus on the fire-lizard a bit more this time. On July 20th, Squirtle will be in the spotlight, and you’ll get double candy for transferring Pokemon. Finally, odd-man-out Natu will be featured July 27th, and you’ll earn twice the XP for evolving Pokémon.
For the Tepig Community Day, using a Fire-type Mega like Hounddoom or either Charizard form will help you get more candy, but Emboar, its final form, won’t be much better than anything currently available. It is tankier than Blaziken, but even with Blast Burn there are better options in PvE and PvP. Worse, Emboar doesn’t get a Mega Form, while Blaziken does. Unless you’re really hurting for Fire-types or are a fan of the fire pig, Tepig Community Day should be a fairly relaxing day.
Raid-wise, we’re looking at the return of Defense Deoxys from July 1st through 16th. The Deoxys formes in general have niche uses, but the Defense forme is quite good for Ultra and Great League play. The news about Mewtwo coming from July 16th to 23rd also means players may want to save passes/time on it during Go Fest’s Raid day, as you’ll have more time to catch it before and after the event (plus PvP players at rank 20+ can potentially get it as a reward). We have no idea what raid pokemon will appear July 23tf, but we’ll update you once we have more details.
Speaking of mystery, Pokemon Go is celebrating its five-year anniversary from Tuesday, July 6th, at 10 a.m., to Thursday, July 15th, at 8 p.m., all local time, but we don’t yet have details on what this event will entail, and again we’ll update this post once we do. 7/5 Update: We’ve got details! The main details are that the first 3 generations of starter pokemon will be spawning in the wild in addition to Darumaka (which can now be shiny). Lures, all of which will last an hour, will have that plus the other 3 generation starters. Oh, and 5th anniversary Flying Pikachu, but ignoring that, Darumaka is a fairly rare but useful pokemon, so you may want to activate a Fire Mega Pokemon for extra candy. Generations 1 and 3 starters also have mega forms, so vets may want to use this event to build up XL Candy to power up these pokemon, while newer players may want to also use this opportunity to find pokemon worth investing in.
And on the topic of catching up, the game will also have Jump-Start Special Research for players who haven’t already completed it, awarding what Niantic describes as, “a ton of Stardust and XP rewards, as well as some exciting Pokémon encounters.”
The five-year anniversary event is also bringing back shiny meltan from Mystery Boxes and will allow players to expand their item storage once again. Since the event will have a Special Research that awards Rare Candies plus “a massive amount” of Pokeballs, some people may want to open their wallets a bit.
Finally, for PvP fans, there will be a double stardust bonus from Monday, June 28th, to Monday, July 12th, but there will also be a GO Battle Night awarding triple stardust from 6 p.m. to midnight on July 11th. This will not stack with the double dust event, but the July 11th event will let you complete 100 PvP battles, if you’re able to squeeze them all in there.
Edit 7/21:Â GoFest2021 unlocked a few more events. Friday, July 23, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. to Tuesday, August 3, 2021, at 8:00 p.m. local time brings back Dialga, this time with a shiny form, but Unown U and Cranidos and Shieldon (among others, but these two will have shinies) will be appearing in the wild, 7k eggs, and raids. Both Cranidos and Dialga are fairly useful in raids but are quite uncommon, so don’t miss out on them.
Friday, August 6, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. to Tuesday, August 17, 2021, at 8:00 p.m. local time will bring back Palkia (with the shiny available), which is above average in Master League PvP. The event also brings Heracross and Kangaskhan to 3 star raids outside of their region restrictions, which is great because both have mega forms. Red-Striped and Blue-Striped Basculin will be spawning in the wild outside their normal regions, and 7k eggs will contain the usually region restricted West Sea and East Sea Shellos, Red-Striped and Blue-Striped Basculin, Heatmor, and Durant. There will be a third event starting August 20th, but details haven’t been revealed. We’ll cover it more in August, but as Dialga and Palkia are often seen with Giratina, that may be part of the next event. Or, perhaps, Arceus. Wait and see!
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!
