Abra Confirmed for Community Day on March 15

Niantic has confirmed that Abra will be the focus of our Community Day for March 2020

The March #PokemonGOCommunityDay featured Pokémon is none other than the Psychic-type Pokémon Abra! 🔮 🥄 ✨ https://t.co/d9NW6x5gaF pic.twitter.com/IKamv8B0a1

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) March 4, 2020

For this event,the following bonuses have been confirmed:

• Abra will appear more frequently in the wild
• Lure Modules will last for 3 hours if placed in Community Day time-frame
• 3x Catch EXP
• Evolve into Alakazam to receive a special Community Day move
• Shiny Abra family (officially) released

Along with our normal community day festivities, Niantic has announced that we'll also see the release of a new limited, paid special research line titled "Investigating Illusions". This story-line is likely focused around the Abra family, and will be available for purchase at a later date for $0.99 (or local equivalent currency), and is confirmed to grant the player the following bonuses:

• 1 Poffin
• 1 Rocket Radar
• 3 Incense
• 13,000 Stardust
• "Other Rewards"

This is the first time that we've seen an event along these lines, so it should be interesting!

As of Generation 7 of the main series, Alakazam can learn the following moves that already exist in the data for Pokemon Go, excluding its current moveset:

Fast Moves

• Iron Tail
• Hidden Power
• Charge Beam
• Zen Headbutt

Charge Moves

• Psybeam
• Nightshade
• Psychic
• Rest (not currently used by any Pokemon)
• Dig
• Foul Play
• Thunder Punch
• Dazzling Gleam
• Ice Punch
• Hyper Beam
• Return
• Frusteration
• Energy Ball
• Giga Impact
• Grass Knot
• Mirror Coat
• Drain Punch (not currently used by any Pokemon)
• Signal Beam

*Moves in Bold are STAB, moves in Italics are legacy

Predictions

Since Psystrike Mewtwo hit the scene and Psychic was buffed, Alakazam has basically lost all hope of being a genuinely relevant Psychic Type attacker in the PvE. Unless it's given an obscenely strong Psychic Type move for its community day, its time in that spotlight has long since ended. One interesting direction that they could go at this point would be to make a Legacy move such as Psychic or Dazzling Gleam into a Community Day move. The former would help Alakazam's standing a bit, but the latter not so much.

That said, Niantic also has a large movepool yet-made to draw from, and one move seems more likely than all of the others as it's literally the Abra family's signature move: Kinesis.

In the main series, Kinesis is a Psychic Type move that lowers enemy accuracy on use. As such, its "effectiveness" translates into something of kin to Charm or Lock-On, which would make it a bit more likely to be a Fast Move. If this is the case then it would have to be, as previously stated, hugely powerful to be of any use in PvE. PvP, on the other hand, is the way that Pokemon Go has been leaning recently, and a very strong potential way for this move to lean. Alakazam is not currently a strong Pokemon in any PvP format due primarily to its frailty, so either way it would need to be extremely strong to make our favorite psychic into a powerful force; especially when it already has Psycho Cut (1.5 DPT/4.5 EPT) and Confusion (4 DPT/3 EPT), two very good Fast Moves, as its current options. Then again, it might be a Charged Move as well. Perhaps a clone of Leaf Blade (35 Energy/70 Power) in order to maximize Alakazam's power?

Time will tell, but the odds are against Alakazam at this point. It seems most likely that this community day will be a repeat of the Ralts line; a decent move that only has niche application. Still, Niantic has surprised us in the past! Keep an eye out, and expect us to have more in-depth analysis of Alakazam's Community Day move once it's fully announced!