Pokemon Sword and Shield fans have received an unexpected gift going into the New Year and new decade. For the next few days, players will have an increased chance of encountering one specific Pokemon and its shiny version in max raid battles: Magikarp.
Magikarp is a Water-type Pokemon first introduced in Generation 1 and well known for being anything but useful. The fish-out-of-water has achieved meme status for only knowing a few moves normally including Splash, a move that does nothing, and having paltry stats. To top things off, the anime has often portrayed Magikarp as the face of ridicule and subject to curb stomp battles. However, Magikarp does evolve into Gyarados, a Pokemon held in high regard and well worth the effort to raise.
Fresh off the heels of the previous Delibird event during Christmas, both types of Magikarp will have an increased spawn chance at Pokemon dens spread throughout the Wild Area. From December 31st to January 3rd, players can find normal Magikarp and shiny Magikarp at fifty-two percent and eight percent of the time respectively. Additionally, the Magikarp that can be encountered will be Level 17, 30, 40, 50, or 60 scaling up from one-star to five-star max raid battles. Beating or catching the Pokemon will also drop many rewards for trainers including EXP candy, Dynamax Candy, and many nuggets.
For most players, this will be a great opportunity to finally catch a shiny Pokemon. Compared to the odds of normally finding or hatching a shiny, a one-out-of-thirteen chance is amazing when put into perspective. The luckiest of players may even find a perfect, shiny 6 IV Magikarp in five-star raids. Furthermore, with the exception of one-star raids, Magikarp will be caught at a level where it can immediately be evolved into Gyarados upon leveling up again. Finally, the nuggets awarded from finishing the raid battle will always contain at least one big nugget, meaning trainers can sell a constant stream of nuggets in to solve their money problems, maybe even permanently.
To Game Freak's credit, it seems Pokemon Sword and Shield are addressing some of the complaints leveled against them previously, especially regarding the normal grind for shiny Pokemon. Furthermore, emphasizing one of the game's strong points in max raid battles means that the development team isn't in full damage control mode regarding Generation 8. For these reasons, the start of a new decade seems like the perfect time to not only evolve gameplay, but bring back some things that veterans of the series enjoy.
In the end, there will be some trainers who don't particularly enjoy max raid battles or fishing for shiny Pokemon. For those individuals, there is still time to claim 20 battle points, some free Pokeballs, and even a free Gigantamax Meowth through Mystery Gift and much more to come in 2020.
Pokemon Sword and Shield are available now for the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Pokemon Official Website