Pokémon Go Karrablast and Shelmet Community Day guide

Pokémon Go is having a Karrablast and Shelmet Community Day event on Sunday, Feb. 9, from 2-5 p.m. in your local time.

As expected with a Community Day event in Pokémon Go, Karrablast and Shelmet will spawn in huge numbers with a high chance for it to appear shiny. There are also several other bonuses and perks, which we’ve listed out below.

How do I catch a shiny Karrablast or Shelmet in Pokémon Go?

As per old research by the now-defunct website The Silph Road (via Wayback Machine), Shiny rates on Community Days are about 1 in 24, which means that if you keep playing throughout the three-hour window, you should find quite a few shiny Pokémon.

If you’re short on time or Poké Balls, you can pop an Incense, then quickly tap each one to check for shiny ones, running from any that aren’t shiny. Notably, any Karrablast or Shelmet you’ve already tapped will face where your player is standing, so that should help identify which ones you may have already checked.

What Community Day moves do Karrablast and Shelmet’s evolutions learn?

If you evolve Karrablast into Escavalier, it’ll learn the charged move Razor Shell. When evolving Shelmet into Accelgor, it’ll learn the charged move Energy Ball. Both of these moves will be available from evolution from Feb. 9 at 2 p.m. until Feb. 16 at 10 p.m.

If you miss out on evolving it during this period, you will likely be able to evolve it during a Community Day weekend event in December to get the moves. If you don’t want to wait, you can use an Elite TM to get the move.

How does Escavalier and Accelgor do in the meta?

For PvE content (raids and gyms), Escavalier is actually a pretty decent bug-type attacker. Of course it gets outclassed by Megas and some other picks, but it does hold its own weight if you give it Bug Bite and Megahorn. That said, bug-types aren’t used very often in raids (as it’s good against grass-, psychic-, and dark-type Pokémon — all which have powerful and more viable counters), so invest sparingly if you’re looking to save on Stardust.

For PvP content, expert and Silph Road user JRE47 notes via Reddit post that neither will shine, but it may be worth picking up one PvP-eligible Escavalier with its special move (Razor Shell) just in case future buffs smile favorably at it.

How do I make the most of Karrablast and Shelmet Community Day?

The following bonuses will be active during the Karrablast and Shelmet Community Day:

• Tripled XP for catching Pokémon
• Doubled candy for catching Pokémon
• Doubled chance for level 31+ trainers to get XL candy from catching Pokémon
• Incense lasts three hours
• Lure Modules lasts three hours
• Karrablast and Shelmet special photobombs when taking snapshots
• One additional special trade
• Stardust cost halved for trading

That said, you should definitely pop a Lucky Egg and an Incense and try to nab some powerful Karrablast and Shelmet.

You should also note that you can bypass the 200 candy cost for both of these Pokémon’s evolutions if you trade them first. Of course, doing this will shuffle their IVs around, so make sure to either only trade ones with bad IVs already or to a Lucky friend. (Or if you don’t care about that at all and just want to complete your Pokédex, do whatever you want!)

If you can Mega Evolve Beedrill, Pinsir, Scizor, or Heracross, you’ll score additional Karrablast or Shelmet Candy per catch. You can also use Primal Reversion on Kyogre to get more candy. (Because Primal Kyogre boosts … bug-type candy, for some reason.)

There will also be “Community Day Continued” Timed Research until Feb. 16 that will reward more Karrablast and Shelmet, including ones with special themed backgrounds.