I’ve written about the 12km egg pool before, but way back in 2020, when things were a little different. There are a lot of gripes with this particular pool, some Pokémon seem to be almost insulting to hatch after 12km of walking, and others are so rare it is almost impossible. I think the community would widely agree that we need a 12km egg pool shake up.
So, first things first, let’s take a look at the Pokémon included in the current 12km egg (aka strange eggs) pool.
There’s a couple of things that jump out to me. Firstly, there aren’t many shiny chances. Of 10 possible Pokémon to hatch, only half can be shiny. Vullaby and Absol have increased shiny rates, but Larvitar, Deino and Skorupi are all full odds shinys, roughly 1 in 500. Absol and Vullably are permaboosted shinies with 1 in 64 odds, which is great for egg hatches. 1 in 500 for egg hatches, not so much. If there were higher shiny odds, and more Pokémon that could be shiny, they would be a lot more exciting. Imagine if the whole pool had 1 in 64 rates to be shiny, it would be so much more exciting and worthwhile to try to get strange eggs!
Secondly, the actual Pokémon included in the eggs… questionable at best. Skorupi and Skrelp in particular draw the mire of the community. Skrelp was in the 5km adventure sync eggs until the Season of GO! started, and Skorupi is a fairly common spawn. Neither are particularly rare, so why 12km eggs? Vullaby, Pancham, Sandile & Salandit are all 12km egg exclusives (bar Pancham also being a rank 16+ GO Battle League reward), which makes them feel a little more worthwhile, even if Vullaby is frustratingly common.
With the eggs being from Team GO Rocket leaders it makes sense that the Pokémon fit that ‘theme’ with Dark and Poison types, but there are better Pokémon that could replace these more common spawns. We could add in Galarian Zigzagoon (I know they are in 7km eggs, but with a great shiny and a rare hatch, it wouldn’t hurt!), Spiritomb, or even add in some long awaited Pokémon like Zorua! The hatch pool is so boring right now, pretty much the only exciting hatch is Salandit, which is the most difficult hatch.
Speaking of hatch difficulty, let’s take a look at the tiers in 12km eggs. Right now Pawniard, Larvitar, Scraggy and Vullaby are most common, followed by Sandile and Pancham, with the rarest tier featuring Salandit, Absol, Deino, Skorupi and Skrelp. Why Skorupi and Skrelp are in the rare tier polluting it I have no idea! Salandit requires a female to evolve, and hatching a female Salandit is even rarer. Hatching a Salandit is approximately a 5% chance according to Silph Road research, with a female hatching roughly 12.5% of the time. So basically, your chances are unbelievably low! The tiers are not necessarily even, so you don’t necessarily have the same rate of chancing a Vullaby as a Scraggy. The Silph Road research has Vullaby as the most common hatch, hatching from roughly 19% of all 12km eggs, whereas Scraggy, in the same hatch tier, is 9.5%.
Salandit is brand new and I can understand it being in the rarest tier, but we’ve had Deino Community Day recently, so maybe it is time for Deino to leave 12km eggs entirely, and Skorupi and Skrelp certainly don’t constitute as rare Pokémon. Absol was raid exclusive and has the increased shiny rates so I can understand it being in the rarest tier. The tier system just doesn’t seem to make sense in strange eggs compared to the rest of the egg pool, the rarest Pokémon sit alongside common spawns, and we don’t know why.
I used to try to make sure I had room for 12km eggs when I battled leaders, but these days, I can’t say I tend to bother. It feels like a lot of effort for a very small amount of reward. If there were more shiny chances I think people would be more motivated for them, but at present, they have the nickname of ‘disappointment eggs’ from many in the community, which isn’t great!
What would you do to fix 12km eggs? New shinies? New Pokémon? Less distance? Let us know in the comments!
