In a game like Pokémon GO, it can quickly happen that one makes mistakes out of ignorance. A YouTuber has shown in a video mistakes that can happen even to professionals.
Even professionals who have been playing Pokémon GO for years can find that they do not fully know some aspects of the game and therefore miss out on rewards.
Poké Daxi, a YouTuber with over 600,000 subscribers, has compiled some mistakes in a video on YouTube that can happen even to die-hard players. So that you don’t make these mistakes, we have compiled them for you from his video.
4 mistakes that can cost you rewards
Routes: The first mistake that the YouTuber mentions in his video is skipping routes. Here you can receive the coveted Zygarde cells every day, which you need to bring your Zygarde into its optimal form.
Moreover, you can encounter more Pokémon when you first complete a route, if you activate incense or adventure incense during the task.
Golden gyms: Another mistake that players can make in Pokémon GO is related to gyms. These can be goldenized by accumulating points for the gym through activities like defeating Pokémon in the gym, feeding them with berries, or successfully completing raids.
Once the gym reaches the golden level, you not only receive more items when spinning the gym disc, but also get an additional Premier Ball if you successfully complete a raid at the gym.
To see how far your progress in a gym is, click on your avatar’s picture on the main screen in the game. In the lower area, just above the medals, you can see all the gyms you have visited as well as your progress.
AR scanning: Many trainers do not pay much attention to AR scanning of PokéStops and gyms. However, you can receive some strong rewards here, including Knursp, lures, and incense.
Collecting field research rewards: When you complete field research tasks, you can also receive an encounter with a Pokémon as a reward. You can save these by closing the Pokémon’s catch screen instead of catching the monster directly.
This way, you can collect the encounters and complete them later. This is especially beneficial for Pokémon that give you more stardust for each catch. If you wait for an event with a stardust bonus, you can thus amass a nice pile of stardust. You can collect a total of 100 Pokémon with this method.
2 mistakes you might regret in the long term
Platinum medals: If you want to make the leap from level 48 to level 49 in the game, you need to complete several tasks in addition to a heap of experience points, including collecting 35 platinum medals.
Therefore, you should not make the mistake of only dealing with your medals when you reach level 48. There are medals that you can easily collect on the side.
Pinning postcards: If you want to get Vivillon in Pokémon GO, you need to collect a lot of postcards. To make this endeavor a bit easier, don’t forget to pin each postcard when you open a gift.
It is sufficient to pin the postcard just before opening the gift, and then remove it immediately afterward. This process takes just 2 extra clicks and ensures that you don’t miss any postcards for your Vivillon progress.
More mistakes to avoid
Raids: 2 more mistakes that the YouTuber mentions in his video concern the raids in Pokémon GO. Firstly, you should not forget to organize your teams before your raids to ensure that you always face the battles with your best team.
Also, if you do not have enough players, make sure to utilize Campfire. This way, you can join raids that you would otherwise have to forgo due to a lack of trainers.
Cryptos: The second last mistake from the video concerns crypto Pokémon. Even though most trainers probably know this, there are still trainers who redeem their crypto Pokémon.
If you do it for your collection, for example, to obtain Pokémon with perfect IVs, then that is, of course, a legitimate reason. However, if you want to use the Pokémon for battles, you should always leave them in their crypto form.
A crypto monster with poor IVs is still stronger due to the 20% increased damage than a redeemed monster with better IVs.
Pokémon Home: If you play the main series games in addition to Pokémon GO, you should not just send your duplicate shinies to the professor. Instead, you can send these monsters to Pokémon Home and from there to your main games.
This is useful because shiny monsters are considerably rarer in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet than during events like Community Day in Pokémon GO.
Speaking of events: of course, there will be various events with different content and bonuses in the game in the coming weeks. If you want to know what they are and when they take place, feel free to take a look at our overview of all events in February 2025 in Pokémon GO.
