My Top 10 (Dorkiest) Pokemon GO Accomplishments

10 min readOct 24, 2017

A little over a year ago, I wrote a blogpost about my top 10 rare Pokemon catches in Pokemon GO. Since then, I’ve continued to play the game… that is, until now. With Gen 3 already starting to be introduced into the game, and in addition to mounting real world responsibilities, I think now is the time is right for me to bow out. Thus as a farewell, I decided to compile a list of my top 10 personal achievements (read: dorkiest moments) from playing Pokemon GO.

10) Catching a Heracross & Corsola

One aspect about Pokemon GO that I think is brilliant is the concept of Regional Exclusive Pokemon. When Pokemon GO was initially released, there were 4 Regional Exclusives: Tauros (America), Mr. Mime (Europe), Farfetch’d (Japan), and Kangaskhan (Australia). Regional Exclusives were set up as a a fun reward for people who travel, as well as a means to make trading a necessity in the future .

With the introduction of Gen 2 in mid-February, Pokemon GO introduced two more Regional Exclusive Pokemon: Heracross and Corsola. Heracross was intended for South America, and Corsola was intended for areas around the equator (specifically areas between 31N and 26S). While this may have been the intentional line of demarcation, it turns out they both can also be found in some parts of Texas and… Florida.

Traveling to Florida to meet my gf’s parents… and also catching Heracross and Corsola

My girlfriend Katie and I had been dating for a number of months and the time came for me to meet her parents, who happen to live in Southern Florida. I was excited because in addition to meeting Katie’s parents I could also try and catch these two ultra rare Regional Exclusives! (luckily Katie played Pokemon GO too and was also excited to catch them)

We arrived in Florida and I met the family, and hung out for the first couple of days. On the third day of our trip we were heading to Miami Beach to visit Katie’s grandmother, Bubbe Dorene. As we were about to leave Pinecrest a Heracross silhouette popped up on our phones and lo and behold we had ourselves a Heracross!

A little while later after visiting Bubbe Dorene, we went to Miami Beach to catch a Corsola. Luckily after a few minutes of walking we found one. We had succeeded in catching both Regional Exclusives! (and we didn’t have to fly 1,750 miles just to catch them)

We spent the rest of the day walking in Miami Beach, catching a few more Heracross and Corsolas and it was a lot of fun.

BONUS: later on, getting a Heracross & Corsola candy from a gym

An additional fun memory tied to Heracross and Corsola is from the gym rework that Niantic announced on Jun 22nd. The rework stated that when giving berries to a Pokemon in your team’s gym you’d be rewarded with stardust and (very rarely) maybe even a candy of the Pokemon you were feeding. Since Heracross and Corsola are unobtainable in NYC, I often placed them in gyms hoping to get a candy from them by feeding them berries — and eventually I did.

9) Mr. Mime candy

As mentioned above, when giving berries to a gym you have a miniscule chance to obtain a candy from the Pokemon you’re feeding. But what would happen if you gave berries to a Pokemon that you didn’t have (in my case Farfetch’d, Kanghaskhan, and Mr. Mime). Would it give you a candy? This was a theory I tried out several times until I finally received one from a Mr. Mime. I asked on Reddit how this could be and how I’d possibly be able to access it — apparently when I eventually catch a Mr. Mime the additional candy will show up. This is kind of an oddity and a bug, but was still pretty cool that I was able to get one.

8) Gyarados Bug

As seen with the Mr. Mime candy, I enjoy the little oddities and bugs in the game so I was intrigued when I encountered the “Gyarados bug.”

The bug

When Gen 1 was released, every Pokemon you caught granted you 100 stardust and 3 candy — irrelevant if you caught a Pokemon’s 1st, 2nd, or 3rd evolution. However when Gen 2 launched, Niantic changed this formula. Now for a 1st evolution you’d receive 100 stardust and 3 candies, for a 2nd evolution- 300 stardust and 5 candies, and for a 3rd evolution- 500 stardust and 10 candies. Thus, when I caught a Gyarados (which is a 2nd evolution, as it evolves from Magikarp) after Gen 2 launched, I expected to receive 5 candies and 300 stardust. However I only received 100 stardust and 3 candy — ie the amount for a 1st evolution. I again asked on Reddit about this and they responded that it was a known bug.

At some point later on, Niantic fixed this mistake and instituted the proper 300 stardust and 5 candy reward for catching a Gyarados, as you can see by the Gyarados I caught below (it says 10 candies because I used a Pinap berry).

7) Catching a 3k+ mon in the wild

This is the most recent addition to the list. It’s incredibly rare to catch a 3000+ cp Pokemon in the wild — so rare in fact, that the only 2 Pokemon where this is even possible to be achieved is with Dragonite and Tyranitar, and in order for it to happen they have to meet the criteria of being both high IV and high level. I’d only seen a couple of wild 3k mon on Reddit so was stunned when I encountered this. As usual, I turned to Reddit who provided me with what the odds were of encountering this Dragonite.

6) Getting all evolutionary items BEFORE the weekly automatic drop was instituted

Upon Gen 2’s release, Niantic introduced 8 Pokemon who could only evolve via an evolutionary item. These items could be obtained by spinning Pokestops, but the odds of getting one of them was astronomically rare. Initially when Gen 2 was released you were given an item on the first day of your 7 day Pokestop-spin-streak but after that there was no guarantee as to when you’d get another one. Eventually due to massiveoutcry, Niantic changed it so that you’d be guaranteed one for every 7th day spin.

Thus, a milestone I was proud to achieve was that I was able to get all of these evolutionary items before Niantic changed the rules of guaranteeing an item for every 7th day streak.

5) Catching ’em all in the wild

I completed my Pokedex for Gen 1 a month after downloading the game and subsequently set a personal goal for myself: to catch all the Pokemon in the wild. It took me until November 3rd but I finally caught the last one I needed (Flareon) in the wild.

Upon Gen 2’s release, it also took me about a month to complete my Gen 2 Pokedex so I set the same goal for myself, and the last Gen 2 Pokemon I needed to catch in the wild was Forretress.

4) “God tier” Shellder and Exeggutor

All Pokemon are based off 3 categories known as Individual Values: Attack, Defense, Stamina. For each of these categories the scale ranges from 1–15 so a 100% IV is 15/15/15 and a 0% IV Pokemon is 0/0/0 (IV’s explained). The odds of getting a perfect IV Pokemon are 1 in 4096. However the odds of getting a 0% mon are significantly rarer since they can’t be hatched and can ONLY be caught and thus, are the rarest kind of mon in the game. I thought it would be cool to catch one just to have as a collector’s item, and fortunately enough I was able to catch both a 0% IV Shellder and Exeggutor.

3) Unfortunate runaways

If you were able to catch every single thing and get everything you needed in Pokemon GO it wouldn’t really be fun — it would be stupid. But while I appreciate this fact, it was still annoying when I had two Legendary Pokemon run from me.

I had a 98% IV Moltres and Raikou run away from me — which was pretty annoying. Having a 98% IV one of these is super rare and in subsequent raids for each of them I never encountered another with IVs that high. However, I was able to catch a 98% IV Articuno and a 98% IV Zapdos so can’ t really complain.

2) Rock Throw Omastar #legacy

On August 19, 2016 — a mere 6 weeks into Pokemon GO’s release — Niantic decided to change the movesets of several Pokemon. This in effect created “Legacy Pokemon” — ie Pokemon that had these pre-change movesets. Due to the discontinuation of their movesets and the short amount of time Pokemon GO had been available, these Pokemon were now very rare. I was fortunate to have 3 Pokemon that were now Legacy Pokemon: Chansey, Porygon, and Omastar. However it was my Omastar (who had legacy move “Rock Throw”) that would be the most valuable. It wasn’t just that my Rock Throw Omastar was a valuable collector’s item; it was a Pokemon that was incredible in battle. Per GamePress:

One annoyance though was that it’s moveset was Rock Throw/ Hydro Pump and I really wanted it to have a double rock moveset. So at the introduction of TMs I tried to TM to Rock Blast… and was ultimately successful on my 3rd try. This gave me an incredibly powerful double rock Pokemon — who also happened to have one of the rarest movesets in the entire game.

1) Shiny Magikarp

On March 22nd, Niantic announced a Water Event. This event usher in an increase of water-type Pokemon, but the most interesting caveat would be the introduction of a “Shiny Magikarp.” The difference between a Shiny Magikarp and a regular Magikarp was purely cosmetic: a Shiny Magikarp had a golden appearance (instead of the usual orange-ish/red Magikarp) and evolved into a Red Gyarados (instead of the the usual greenish/blue Gyarados).

Like any other Pokemon GO player I was excited to hopefully encounter one. While uncommon (estimates ranged from 1 in 235 to 1 in 400), I figured that I should be able to catch at least one during the event. Before the event started, I took a screenshot of how many Magikarp I’d caught to track how many more I’d catch until I caught a Shiny.

Water event ends a week later, but no Shiny :/

During the weeklong Water Event I caught 224 Magikarps but sadly none were a Shiny. For the next several months, I encountered a handful of Magikarps here and there but the odds of catching a Shiny were stacked against me. That is until…

Central Park gets a Magikarp nest!

Following the usual 2 week nest rotation, Central Park got a Magikarp nest in mid-August.

This had to be the time I’d catch one, right? Being as I lived right across the street from Central Park I was able to go for a walk a couple of times a day. And yet for the first few days — nada.

Catching the Shiny Magikarp!

On Tuesday August 29th I went for a walk around the Jaquelien Onassis Reservoir. I was halfway around and saw a cluster of about 6 Magikarp. I caught the first 3, nothing, kept catching nothing, until I clicked on the 4th immediately saw a sparkle and lo and behold it was a Shiny Magikarp!

As you can imagine, I was really excited as this was one of the last goals I wanted to accomplish in the game. It had taken me 6 months and 840 Magikarps caught since Shiny Magikarps were introduced into the game but I had finally caught one!