Despite a plague of issues during the live event, Pokémon Go players will soon get a chance at a rare monster. Fest attendees all get legendary Lugia in their accounts tonight, and players worldwide will start seeing Lugia in raid battles within the next 48 hours, Niantic announced. That’s not all.
Niantic has been tracking individual team’s contributions to the overall “Mystery Challenge” that’s been running during today’s big event. Team Mystic won the whole thing, and so the second legendary monster will be Articuno. No word yet on when Articuno will be available, though. No surprise that Mystic won, though: they are the biggest team, after all.
UPDATE 9:00PM: Niantic says other goodies will go into effect along with legendaries:
Thanks to the Trainers around the world who banded together to catch millions of Pokémon during the Challenge Windows, the following rewards will last until Monday, July 24, at 5:00 P.M. PDT:
Double Stardust
Double Candy
Double XP
Increased Pokémon encounters
Reduced hatching distance
Reduced buddy distance
Additionally, we are now told that Articuno goes live effective immediately with Lugia, and that the other legendary birds will follow “soon.”
Sure enough, players on social media are now sharing pictures of captured legendaries:
Here’s how it’ll work once it all goes live:
As Trainers around the world go out and explore their neighborhoods in search of Pokémon and Raid Battles, they can keep an eye out for unique Legendary Eggs appearing at Gyms. If Trainers and their team are able to successfully defeat a Legendary Raid Boss, they’ll have the opportunity to catch a Legendary Pokémon of their own! While Legendary Pokémon will help them take on the toughest Raid Bosses and Gym Battles, they’re not willing to leave their Trainer’s side, so they can’t be left to defend Gyms.
Lugia may not be active yet, but we do know that it will be a Flying / Psychic type, so get your counters ready! The raid battle, and consequent capture attempts, are likely going to be tough. Still, this is great news: earlier today, many fans were worried that the rocky Fest launch meant that players wouldn’t be able to unlock legendaries at all.
For those of you preparing, as predicted, Golem and Tyranitar are particularly well-suited for a match-up against Lugia. If you don’t have those, do note that Lugia takes extra damage from electric, dark, ice, ghost, and rock-type moves. Good luck, trainers.