Trainers,
we are all still trying to understand everything that went down yesterday, from the Water Festival to the first ever recorded Shiny Pokémon. As things settle down, new info gets verified and today we can share more details than yesterday.
This post is mostly just quick bits of information, but please be sure to read through all of it in order to avoid any further confusion about Shinies!
Before we begin with Shiny facts, let us just remind you that the 17th Nest Migration has occurred, meaning your local spawns and nests have changed last night.
Shiny Pokémon are individual!
It has been proven that Shiny Pokémon encounters are individual and based per player encounter. You read it right, the same Pokémon can show as normal for you and Shiny for your friend. It doesn’t seemingly have to do with anything but random luck, but we are still investigating. It is rumored that this was implemented in order to prevent spoofers from targeting Shiny Pokémon exclusively.
Once again, make sure you are familiar with Generation 1 and 2 Shiny Variants.
Shiny Pokémon don’t show differently on the map!
You won’t know if a Pokémon is Shiny by looking at the world map, you will know only once it shows up in the encounter screen. We updated our Full technical breakdown of Shiny Pokémon in Pokémon GO accordingly. Again, this seems to be a part of the new “spoofing protection” package.
Shiny Magikarp and Gyarados are the only confirmed Shiny Pokémon at the moment
As far as we know, there have been no other Shiny Pokémon reports besides Shiny Magikarp and Gyarados. If you encounter any other Shiny make sure to submit your screen recording to us via Twitter or Facebook.
Shiny Magikarp won’t turn into a Shiny Ditto
One would expect that catching a Shiny Magikarp, that is actually a Ditto, would result in a Shiny Ditto, right? We’ll it seems this is not the case, at least not for now, as several players have reported Shiny Magikarps turning into regular Ditto. Preposterous! 🙁
Shiny Pokémon don’t have any special stats / IVs
Although in the main series games (Gameboy games) there was a correlation between stats and if the Pokémon was Shiny, there seems to be no such thing in Pokémon GO. This is still being actively researched, however, early results show no correlation.
You can get Shiny Magikarp via Incense!
Several players have confirmed this phenomena, making it super easy to obtain a Shiny Magikarp during this event. Pop an incense, start walking by the coast line and hope for the best.
Dark Gyarados is not a Shiny Gyarados
A few hours prior to the release of Shiny Pokémon, we’ve noticed that Gyarados changed its model to a Dark Blue variant. Several players jumped on their feet mistakenly claiming that this is a Shiny variant. It is not, it is just a recoloring of the Gyarados model.
Shiny Gyarados is red and looks like this:
