Community Day October 2020 Guide

• Drastically increased spawns for the Pokemon Charmander
  • Obtainable from catches, hatches, and research
  • An increased Shiny rate (roughly 1 in 23) during Community Day hours
• 3-hour Incense
• 3x Catch Dust
• Take a Snapshot during Community Day for a Charmander Photobomb (up to 5 times)
• One-time purchasable Community Day bundle
  • 1,280 PokeCoins
  • 1 Elite Charge TM
  • 30 Ultra Balls
  • 3 Star Piece
  • 3 Super Incubators
• One-time free bundle with 30 Ultra Balls
• Timed Research and Field Research tasks that reward Mega Charizard Energy
• Special Research story: A Tale of Tails
  • $1 or equivalent local currency
  • does not include an in-game medal
  • will also include Mega Charizard Energy
• Additional gifts from Buddy Pokemon This bonus will not be active this Community Day
• All Charmander evolved into Charizard during Community Day hours learn the exclusive move Dragon Breath
  • TMs and learning a New Move will not give you this exclusive move
  • Must evolve a Charmelon during CD in your region (or up to two hours after)
  • Have a stable internet connection and consider doing a test evolve, as Niantic acknowledges server issues can and do happen during CD, yet refuses to compensate/correct this known issue.
• Charizard obtained through Mega Raids should also know Dragon Breath (currently unconfirmed).
• Charizard obtained during this event will NOT learn Blast Burn (without an ETM).
• Bonuses from overlapping the Strange Eggs event
  • Quarter Egg distance
  • More frequent Rocket Balloons

Community Day and Covid-19

Niantic has altered Community Day events to be more suited to the pandemic allowing them to be fully enjoyed while at home. For additional Coronavirus considerations, check out our article on that subject as well.

Those looking for additional Community Day tips can check out February's guide, our last before worldwide lockdowns. Wear a mask and practice social distancing if you do decide to go out and play.

Where applicable, this section will be updated to include new information as our friendly NZ “beta testers” experience CD before anyone else in the world. On Community Days with new, unpredictable features, the only way to know for sure how they’ll function is having others experience it first. Check back here before CD to see if there’s any last-minute tips you need to know!

Playing in NZ? Thanks! We monitor reports on The Silph Road carefully, though you can also submit reports here on GamePress or directly to NoLucksGiven on twitter. Additionally, it is even more recommended you have a stable internet connection and consider doing a test evolve, as Niantic acknowledges server issues can and do happen (especially in your region) during CD, yet refuses to compensate/correct this known issue.

Rewards for special research "A Tale of Tails" are

• Charmander encounter
• Charmeleon
• Charizard
• 60 Charmander candy
• 300 Mega Charizard energy
• 15,000 Stardust
• 1 Poffin
• 3 Incense
• 3 Rare Candy
• 5 Golden Razzberry
• 5 Silver Pinaps
• 10 Pokeballs
• 6,000 XP

The only current thing known about the timed research is that the first page rewards at least 250 Mega Energy from one screenshot received (probably 300 and more on subsequent pages).

Additional high IV Charmander can also be obtained prior to Community Day by completing the Field Research task "Power Up a Pokemon 10 Times." (CP range 387-420). This task can reward any Kanto starter Pokemon but will be the same for all players that receive the task from that stop. Share the Charmander you find with your local Community and encourage others to do the same.

Wait till CD starts in your region to claim for increased shiny chance.

Mega Charizard X and Y can be encountered through Mega Raids to obtain Candy before the event. Charizard caught during the event should also know Dragon Breath (currently unconfirmed).

2+ Incense

Each Incense lasts 3 hours, meaning 2 will allow you to play the entire event while Incensed, a necessity for those hoping to play while at home.

Turn on vibrate or connect your Pokemon Go+. Incense Pokemon are actually invisible for a few seconds after spawning. Navigating through other menus can help reload the map and make these Pokemon appear quicker.

Stacking Incense will allow you to run additional Incense for 3 hours, past the end of the event. This can be good for finding extra Enigma Week spawns. Even if you only click 1/3 of those incensed spawns, that's as efficient as an normal Incense. Anything after that is bonus!

1-12 Star Pieces

Triple dust makes this the best time to make use of Star Pieces possible. Even if you only make use of 1/3 of the time, a Star Piece during this event is quickly worthwhile. Definitely use one with your daily streak bonus and to clear your research stack. Consult "Breaking the Bank" for more tips on maximizing your Stardust this CD!

Lucky Egg

Because your friends might also be playing during CD, now may be the perfect time to coordinate friendship level ups. 6-hour Community Days are long enough that you don't miss much by cracking an egg, though this also means coordinating level ups might be more difficult to agree on a time for.

Plenty of Pokeballs

Make it a priority to open as many gifts as possible each day to restock on Pokeballs before the event. After the event, keep opening to prepare for the next one!

Increase your storage capacity so you can keep opening. This will allow you to stockpile more balls when you’re not playing as much to prepare for events like this.

Don't forget to check the in-game shop for 30 free Ultra Balls.

The Research “Bank” or “stack” aka queue is a feature that is officially not supported by Niantic. This means proceed with caution. Niantic’s official stance is that they will not in any way compensate for any errors that arise from using this feature. That all said, it can be very helpful on CDs offering bonus Stardust.

When you run from a research encounter (or an error occurs or your collection is full), the encounter is stored above your existing research tasks. This gives the appearance of having 4 research tasks.

Fleeing from additional tasks (simply claim your reward then run away from the encounter) will allow you to store multiple encounters this way. This is what is commonly referred to as the “bank” “stack” or “queue”. The research will appear here from oldest to newest, meaning if you accidentally run from an encounter, you will have to clear through your entire bank to find it again. Rewards will appear in the order that you complete the task, with only one visible at a time. They’re not gone. Even though you can only see one at a time, the other research is “underneath” the top encounter in your stack. Catch that Pokemon and the next will be visible. While you can store breakthrough encounters and Special research encounters, these follow different rules and do not appear in the same bank.

What’s the Catch?

There is a limit of 100 banked Pokemon. When exceeding this limit, Pokemon will be deleted from the bank. This is the part Niantic now claims no responsibility for. Bank carefully. If you’re going to make use of this feature, consider downloading a counting widget to track your capacity. Recent reports have the oldest banked Pokemon being deleted (though it's always possible this can change). It’s a good idea to know the first Pokemon you have banked and check to see if that changes after acquiring more rewards. If so, you’re at capacity and should catch a few before completing more research.

Using the bank can be a very rewarding element to quickly completing research tasks. After becoming familiar with throwing at task rewards, banking them will allow you to quickly encounter Pokemon that are easy to throw at. The Research Task List can give you a full list of currently available task rewards.

Even if you currently have 0 banked research encounter rewards, start saving today!

Star Piece Like a Beast

You’ll want to make room in your Pokemon Storage if you haven’t already. Delete room for Weedle so you can IV check them after. Clear 100 slots for your banked encounters (which may also have good IV) and clean even more space for wild encounters. You’ll want as much room as possible going into CD and you’ll want to make sure you spend as little time switching menus as possible so that you can catch anything that pops up. Even common spawns during this even grant as much dust as you’d normally receive for a Stage 1 Pokemon on a Star Piece.

1st and 7th Day Streak Catch bonuses are added onto dust value based on evolution stage.

*It is unconfirmed that streak bonuses, increased due to COVID lockdowns, are additionally increased for triple dust events.

Because this bonus can be quite large and you'll likely be using a Star Piece to make it even larger, it can be beneficial to avoid catching Pokemon after midnight on the day of Community Day.

You can view your current streak progress at the bottom of the Today view.

Here are a few other things to keep in mind right before Community Day starts for making the most of the granted bonuses.

• If coordinating Lucky Egg friendships, encourage your friends to egg and advance friendships before the event starts. This allows you to focus on catching once the featured Pokemon starts spawning!
• Before you catch anything before CD starts, consult Breaking the Bank's tips on maximizing your Stardust.
• In similar vein, you may not want to catch Shadow Pokemon from Rocket Battles. Those used to battling a Grunt right at midnight may easily forget this one. It's possible to still complete your battle but run instead of catching the Pokemon.
• Existing spawns can change to the featured Pokemon. Clicking on Pokemon to catch or even just to shiny check will prevent them from turning into the featured Pokemon. It’s fine though to check for shinies you don’t yet have. If you want to catch the most of the featured Pokemon, avoid clicking on spawns as Community Day is about to begin.
• You can only complete research from each stop once daily.  If you complete a task at a given stop, you cannot receive the “Catch 3” task from that stop during Community Day. Occasionally, receiving the task from a stop will lock it into its non-CD task.
  • Tasks revert to their pre-CD tasks when CD is over but you cannot receive research from Stops where you completed “Catch 3” or the original research.
  • Because of this, you may decide to skip over stops during CD that you know give desirable research (from Discord, Facebook, etc.) or complete them before CD starts.
  • Many players may do the opposite, choosing not to complete Research in areas they know they will be during CD for easy rewards.
  • Check to see if you have completed the Research Task of a given Pokestop by the indicator in the top right corner of a Pokestop

Now, with those in mind, there is still room for choice. If you’ll be playing all Community Day then you might not care about one spawn point here and there, and catching weather boosted Machop or shiny checking a Wailmer may be worth it to you. Likewise, you may not find it necessary to fill your inventory with Community Day eggs.

Use this time before the event starts to prep; spin stops, transfer Pokemon, open gifts (and level up friendships), Raid, check-in, and obtain/give out Meltan boxes.

Rewards for special research "A Tale of Tails" are

• Charmander encounter
• Charmeleon
• Charizard
• 60 Charmander candy
• 300 Mega Charizard energy
• 15,000 Stardust
• 1 Poffin
• 3 Incense
• 3 Rare Candy
• 5 Golden Razzberry
• 5 Silver Pinaps
• 10 Pokeballs
• 6,000 XP

This has mostly been an over-costed bad buy in the past, but it's only a buck, so many players will purchase it anyway. Also note that "A Tale of Tails" will not award an in-game badge. A Tale of Tails does not need to be completed before the end of Community Day, though it is beneficial to do so for increased shiny odds and for a Charizard that knows Dragon Breath. Charmander and Charizard can be shiny but Charmeleon likely cannot.

During Community Day, Field Research Tasks are changed to “Catch 3 Charmander” with the following rewards;

• 500 Stardust
• 2 Ultra Balls
• 5 Great Balls
• 2 Pinap Berries
• 1 Golden Razzberry
• Magikarp encounter (CP range 387-420)
• Mega Charizard Energy

This Community Day, there will also be a special timed research. This can be found in the Today tab of the Research menu. This will disappear when the event ends in your area. All three tabs will have Community Day Research, so don't forget this one as it will also award Mega Charizard Energy!

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the timed research will require Mega Evolving a Charizard and provide the requisite energy to do so. This will have the benefit of providing double candy for Charmander caught after this

The featured May Community Day Bundle will be a one-time purchase, costing 1280 PokeCoins and containing 1 Elite Charge TM, 30 Ultra Balls, 3 Star Piece, and 3 Super Incubators

Community Day Bundle boxes are limit 1 per account per month and alternate between Fast and Charge TMs. Elite TMs are priceless items and can save a ton of dust powering up a new Pokemon when an exclusive move is released. Move exclusive moves are Charge moves, so boxes featuring Elite Charge TMs are a great buy. The value lies fully in how you value an Elite Charge TM but these are generally considered a good buy.

Taking a snapshot of one of your Pokemon will trigger a special Photobomb during this event. This occurs during the first picture in any photo shoot. The featured Pokemon will photobomb up to 5 times during the event! This is only 5 extra spawns in the grand scheme of things, but can be helpful for those that are low. Spawns follow similar rules to Incensed spawns (one on the map at a time and quick catching is funky). It's also an easy way to progress the Photobomb bagde.

Shiny Pokemon do not appear shiny in the Photobomb and on the world map. This is a change to previous Shiny Photobomb encounters. Make sure you click it after taking a pic!

Community Day Raids and Eggs and Rocket Grunts

Recent CDs have not included the featured Pokemon in additional forms of content like Raids and Rocket Battles but past CDs have. Once the event has started in NZ, we’ll update this space. Check back later!

One incredibly awkward feature about this Community Day, our first to feature a repeated Pokemon, is that Charizard obtained during this event will not recieve the Elite Move Blast Burn. Put simply, a Charizard without Blast Burn is not a Charizard. It is a borderline essential move for this Pokemon, leaving many players feeling it may be better to not evolve your Charizards in case future events allow you to learn both moves.

Even if a future event forces you to pick which move (ex: Saturday for Blast Burn, Sunday for Dragon Breath), you'll definitely want to learn Blast Burn instead of Dragon Breath. This is because Blast Burn is less replaceable in both PvP and PvE, but, more importantly, it is better to spend an Elite Fast TM than an Elite Charged TM. Niantic releases EFTMs and ECTMs at about the same rate but introduces many more Elite Charged Moves than they do Fast. Eventually, players will struggle for a use for EFTMs, but ECTMs will likely always have a use as Niantic continues to introduce more Elite Charged Moves.

Unless you're planning on ETMing Charizard in the next two months, you should wait until December's CD recap event before evolving any Charizard. Since Charizard basically needs Blast Burn to function, The only way you'll use it is if you also spend an ETM. Because of this, it's best to wait to December to at least see what Niantic is planning on doing in regards to Charizard. If it's just Dragon Breath, you can evolve then, but there's otherwise very little reason to waste a good IV/shiny Charmander on a Charizard that won't learn Blast Burn.

In the Azumaril League Great League, if you're playing Charizard, you're dong so because you want to deal Fire-type damage with your fast move. Dragon Breath does allow it to beat Altaria, but sacrifices against all of the various Steel-type Pokemon that are part of the reason to run Charizard in the first place! Alolan Marowak, Blaziken, and Typhlosion are generally better Fire-types to use for this format. 

The Ultra League is Charizard's best League, and you'll actually want Dragon Breath here to take on Giratina! That said, if you're running Charizard + Double Charm, you'll want to hang onto Fire Spin still, as your primary concern is using Charizard to quickly dispatch any Steel-types. With Dragon Breath, Charizard does a reasonably Gyarados impression, but fails against Gyarados, as well as a lot of other matchups Gyara can win.

Charizard also sees a lot of play in the Ultra League Premiere Cup. There it makes up a core part of the meta as Venusaur and Escavalier are two of the format's top performers. With no Giratina to be found, this is another Fire Spin format.

In the Master League Premiere Cup, Charizard mostly seems like a worse Gyarados, and Grass-types are nearly nonexistant.

Master League proper has too many legendaries for Charizard to be relevant, but if Mega Pokemon are someday allowed in GBL, both of Charizard's evolutions look very promising (and with Dragon Breath because of all of the Dragon-type legendaries). By then, other Mega Pokemon may be released, pushing Charizard out of the League once more.

Charizard is also Flying-type, making it eligible for the upcoming event featuring the Flying Cup.  Charizard can answer Skarmory but is overall going to be a horrible choice for a format defined by Aerodactyl and Mantine.

PvP Ready CPs

Finding Pokemon that can be evolved to be near the CP-cap in PvP leagues can save a lot of Stardust. Before evolving, consult a CP/IV calculator to confirm your Charmander will stay below the CP thresholds. Looking for Charmander with CP around or below these thresholds can be great for trainers interested in PvP with limited resources;

For Great League Charizard, look for Charmander with CP 463-504 and below.

For Ultra League Charizard, look for Charmander with CP 763-844 and below.

Charizard is a passable Fire-type attacker (with Elite Blast Burn), earning it a spot on our Attacker Tier List at Tier 7. Shadow Charizard finds its home as a Tier 4 alongside Moltres.

Mega Charizard Y sits alongside Mega Blaziken as the best Fire-type Attackers we may ever see, a slight DPS increase over Shadow Moltres with 50% more TDO.

Mega Charizard X is a different story. Charizard X is the Dragon-type one, but it's low attack holds it back significantly. Mega Charizard X has a lower attack stat than many of the other top tier Dragon options, including Salamence and the big legendaries, and the others aren't too far off. Dragonite and Garchomp, which have lower attack, have the benefit of better moves and still manage to outperform MCX (when not accounting for the Mega Boost). Sadly the Dragon Breath Dragon Claw moveset is mostly a draw for PvP but leaves Charizard a bit lacking for raiding content.

Our first repeat Community Day, the reception to this event can make you forget that it placed 2nd in a fan vote! Charizard is truly beloved. It's because of this fan love that Charizard has received 2 Mega Evolutions, and Niantic is playing up that aspect to make this Community Day feel truly unique.

It can be difficult for hardcore players to get excited about a Pokemon that they already probably have a set of shinies for, though those players can also use this to stock up on Charizard Energy (maybe). Niantic has made Mega Energy research tasks extremely