The Community Day in January 2021 focuses on Pokémon GO and Machollo. For some trainers, this may sound boring, but MeinMMO editor Noah Struthoff believes: It’s really worth it!
This is the Community Day: On January 16, this Saturday, the Community Day with Machollo will take place. There will be triple Stardust and you can benefit from the bonuses for 6 hours again.
In my opinion, the Community Day is finally useful again. For me, it is even the best Community Day in many months.
Community Day with Machollo will be awesome
Why is the event considered boring? There was a lot of criticism around the announcement of Machollo. Trainers complained because Machollo is already available as a Shiny in the game and through this event is only devalued – afterwards, everyone will have the Shiny, which was previously rare.
Moreover, many actually want to catch a new Shiny on Community Day. At least it has always been the case in the first years. However, in 2020 there were some Community Days where no new Shiny was available. 2021 seems to continue this way – much to the dismay of many trainers.
Why do I see it differently? I want to emphasize that I can completely understand the criticism and I am also annoyed that my Shiny Machollo, which I hunted for hours in previous events, is suddenly losing value. Every trainer playing diligently on Saturday will almost certainly catch a Shiny.
Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the Community Day and I didn’t have this feeling at all during the whole year 2020. The Community Days were a disappointment for me.
The main reason for this is the XL candies, which have been earnable for Pokémon since December 2020. Machomei, the evolution of Machollo, is one of the best Fighting attackers in the game and so far I have only a handful of XL candies for the Pokémon. I hope to get enough XL candies on Community Day to power up 2 Machomei to level 50.
Additionally, there is triple Stardust for catching Pokémon. So I will also earn the Stardust that I want to invest in Machomei.
For me, Shinies are therefore secondary, if not completely unimportant. Maybe I will find a Shiny with good IVs and if not, that’s not a big deal.
I have come to terms with this: Since 2020, Niantic has been pursuing a trend regarding Community Days that is regrettable but also understandable.
While in 2018 and 2019 we still received either a starter or a rare Pokémon as the Community Day Pokémon, in 2020 there are hardly any surprises left. Instead, there are Pokémon like Hornliu or Samurzel that, although newly introduced as Shiny, are not really useful. Alternatively, Community Days featuring Karpador or Nebulak offer a Shiny that was already in the game beforehand.
The intention behind this is clear: They want to take some pressure off. If they continued to alternate between starters and strong Pokémon, Community Days would probably quickly run out of options.
So I’ve come to terms with the fact that Community Days are no longer as exciting as in 2018 or 2019. In return, I look forward to gathering XL candies and pursuing a completely different goal on Community Day than in the previous months.
You must consider this: XL candies are only available if you are already at level 40. With these candies, you can then continue leveling monsters from level 40. Other candies are no longer sufficient for this.
If you are below level 40, you don’t have to worry. You can collect the normal candies to first level Machomei to level 40 and then farm XL candies. If you already have enough Machomei at a high level, save the candies and exchange them for XL candies starting at level 40. For 100 normal candies, you will then get one XL candy.
Around the Community Day, the Sinnoh event is also running in Pokémon GO. Here’s the information:
Pokémon GO: All raid bosses, quests and Shinies for the Sinnoh event
