A Pokemon Go Community Day is a worldwide three-hour window during which there is a featured Pokemon with an exclusive move and along with bonuses (increased XP (experience points) or stardust) appearing at local parks. For example, the first Community Day on January 20, 2018 featured Pikachu with the charged move Surf, double XP, and lure modules activated during the event window lasted for three hours. During the event, the number of Pikachu (all with the charged move Surf) appearing was much larger and the odds of catching a shiny Pikachu increased.
The three-hour window in each geography occurs:
- The Americas and Greenland: 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM PST (2 – 5pm EST)
- Asia-Pacific: Noon to 3:00 PM JST
- Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India: 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM UTC
Preparation
- Identify a location in a park (or pseudo park – the Embarcadero near the San Francisco Ferry Building is a great location) with at least three co-located pokestops.
- Stock up on a lure for each pokestop to be visited (though in a heavily trafficked area you may be able to rely on other trainers setting lures). The lures may be distributed amongst the trainers in your party or in just one trainer’s bag.
Per Trainer
- Ensure that there’s box space to store at least fifty pokemon per hour of event time. (You’re going to want to wait until after playing in the event to evaluate your catch.)
- If the featured pokemon is one that you are going to want to evolve and power up, then stock up on pinap berries (pineapples). (Catching a Dratini (February 2018 Community Day) with a pineapple results in six Dratini candies; evolution to a Dragonair takes 25 Dratini candies, evolution to a Dragonite takes 100, and each power up takes at least 3. If you catch 25 Dratini with pineapples during the event, then you should get at least one incredible wonder with a 95 to 100% IV and enough candies to transform the best one into a Dragonite, one of the most effective attackers.)
- Stock up on balls. (Some trainers may need to increase the size of their bag.)
- If the bonus is increased stardust, stock up six star pieces. Optionally, stock up on six incenses and six lucky eggs.
- If the bonus is increased XP, stock up on six lucky eggs and at least one star piece.
On-site
Just after the event start time, as needed set a lure at every local pokestop. Each trainer should then:
- Set a star piece and lucky egg (and optionally an incense).
- Catch as many of the featured pokemon as possible in thirty minutes.
- Check box for featured pokemon that are incredible wonders and/or shiny.
- Red poke ball bottom center, lower left ‘POKEMON’, lower right button and sort by ‘RECENT’. A shiny pokemon will have three horizontal diamonds in the upper left corner of its poke box thumbnail.
- Analyze new pokemon looking for wonders – especially those which are equally high in HP (health points), Attack, and Defense (had) – and those which are also incredible or at least certainly impressed.
- Repeat until sufficient number of highly rated and/or shiny featured pokemon have been caught.
- Optionally, set a lucky egg and do a mass evolve. (Wait until after the event’s conclusion to save the evaluation and deletion of those pokemon.)
- Before the end of the three hour window, evolve the featured pokemon in order to increase the odds of the evolved form inheriting the special move. (A pokemon evolved outside of the event window will likely have a different move.) A shiny pokemon will maintain shiny status regardless of when the evolution is performed.
2018 February 24
Saturday, February 24th will be an excellent day to try to catch a wonder Dratini. Not only will there be a lot of Dratini to catch – with a special move – but you’ll also get 3x stardust for all pokemon caught and lures activated during the event window will last for 3 hours (6x as long as usual). I participated in last month’s Community Day which featured Pikachu with a charged move of Surf. Note that if you want to keep the special move with the evolved form (Dragonair and Dragonite) you’ll need to evolve before the end of the three-hour window – and even then I’m not sure that it will hold. I also caught a shiny Pikachu; I read reports that others likewise caught shiny Pikachu during the event. If you have enough pokecoins left over from Christmas, I’d buy one of the special boxes that appeared in the shop the other day
pokemongolive.com/en/events/ (click on ‘FEB 24’ or ‘Community Day’ for more details on the Feb 24th event)
pokemongolive.com/en/events/