Galarian Ponyta and Farfetch'd, now Sirfetch'd too! I got my Shiny Giratina!
I took the thumbnail as a screenshot from the in-game news. I really love this landscape with the Pokémon on it!
Yesterday there was an event to celebrate the release of The Crown Tundra, the expansion of the Pokémon Sword and Shield. To celebrate it we got some more Galar region Pokémon in Pokémon GO! Galarian Farfetch'd had already been available in the wild with a event back in June, but its Galar region evolution Sirfetch'd was not.
Galarian Ponyta was not in the game yet, and yesterday it was added to the game with the event. For the full 24 hour duration it was available in 1-star Raids. I'm not a huge fan of these Raid-exclusive Pokémon for 1 & 3-star Raids so I didn't wanna buy any Raid Passes for it. But I still had my free daily Raid Pass and because I can't always do a Raid during the weekend I decided to use it, so I could get my daily pass today immediately without having to worry about using yesterday's.
Not to worry though! Galarian Ponyta is not Raid-exclusive. It was just during those 24 hours, to make it more available to everyone. Now that the event is over, both Galarian Farfetch'd and Ponyta and available in the 7 km Egg pool! So you can get them from hatching Eggs received from gifts.
I walked around for quite some time playing yesterday, first I didn't have any weather boosted spawns, but in the last hour or so I did have weather boosted ones. I managed to catch a 96% IV as my best Galarian Farfetch'd.
Here are my Ponyta from the Raid I did and that best Farfetch'd!
Back in June when Galarian Farfetch'd was added to the game for the first time it was not possible to evolve it yet. Now with this event, and anytime after that, it is possible to evolve the Galarian Farfetch'd into Sirfetch'd. In Sword and Shield your Galarian Farfetch'd has to land 3 critical hits in one battle in order to evolve in Sirfetch'd. As critical hits are not a thing in Pokémon GO's battle system, they had to do it differently. The way you have to evolve it here is by making 10 Excellent Throws while Galarian Farfetch'd is your Buddy Pokémon. It does not have to be in a row, and progress is not lost when you change your Buddy! So you could set it as your Buddy, make 3 Excellent throws, then use a different Buddy for a while and when you change back to your Galarian Farfetch'd it will still be at 3/10. It does have to be the same Galarian Farfetch'd though!
While walking around I was sometimes doing a Giratina Raid as well using Remote Raid Passes. I had been super unlucky when it comes to getting it Shiny, as I still didn't have a single Shiny. And I could use a really great IV one too, so I felt like doing some more Raids before it would disappear yesterday evening. With one of the last Remote Raids I did I finally encountered a Shiny Giratina! :D
That was a great end to it!
The last Raid I did I encountered an issue though, when my Pokémon fainted (due to a small group) and I tried to rejoin I was kicked out of the Raid and couldn't find it on my Raids view anymore. So I lost that Raid Pass unfortunately. I contacted support about the issue, I hope they'll get back to me about it.
The Halloween event has started now as well! So you can definitely expect a post about it either later this weekend or after the weekend!
Did you catch any good Galarian Farfetch'd? Did you do a Galarian Ponyta Raid or are you waiting to hatch it from an Egg?