November Community Day – Woo-hoo, it’s Wooper!

Welcome back, Trainers! It’s Community Day again! This time, I think everyone is going to be pretty happy with the ‘mon who got picked! Who doesn’t love Wooper, after all? Much like Sandshrew Community Day both the original form AND the regional variant will be available! Plus, we can add another page to our Paldean Pokedexes with Clodsire!

The date and time? Sunday the 5th of November in the usual 2:00pm till 5:00pm time slot.

What fun can we expect?

2X Catch Candy, including 2X the chance to gain Candy XL for catches made by Trainers level 31 and up.

1⁄4 Hatch distance for Eggs placed in Incubators during event times.

Lures and Incense launched during event times will last for 3 hours. Not including your Daily Incense, unfortunately.

Photobombs! 5 would be my guess.

For $1 or your local equivalent you can take part in a Special Research quest: Muddy Buddy! These Tickets can be purchased for Great Friends or better as well!

Special Field Research will be available to help keep you stocked up on resources!

After 2:00pm, 4 Star Wooper Raids will launch. Defeat these and Wooper will spawn in a 300 meter radius of the Gym for 30 minutes and they’ll have the same Shiny odds as during the event proper. (In person passes only, though.)

One additional Special Trade can be performed between 2:00pm and 10:00pm.

Speaking of Trades, they will cost 50% less Stardust.

Wooper, of course, will be spawning in massive amounts all over the place!

If you’re lucky enough, you might snag some Shiny ones!

Evolve them into their final forms to gain access to the Community Day exclusive moves: Aqua tail for our old friend from Johto, Mega Horn for our new Paldean pal!

Now! Let’s check out the stars of the show!

Spotlight on Wooper

Wooper has been with us since generation 2 and has been a fan-favorite pretty much this whole time. This is a perfect Pokemon design – it’s cute, you can tell immediately the kind of creature it is and the design is very much a ‘Pokemon’ design. It just LOOKS like a Pokemon!

The Pokedex, despite having many entries for this little guy, is relatively spare on information. We know a couple things, though! It likes its water cold and only leaves the water once the air temperature is pleasantly chilled. It looks for food outside of the water. There’s a gooey, gloopy film that forms over its body to keep in moisture and act as something of a defense mechanism – touching this film bare handed causes a shooting pain!

Once it evolves into Quagsire, this Pokemon gains a massive evolutionary advantage.

Hands.

Unfortunately, it’s not exactly a smart Pokemon so takes this new set of tools for granted. Instead of hunting above the water, this Pokemon simply lies around with its mouth op0en and waits for prey to blunder in. This is probably the wisest choice, though, as out of 28 Pokedex entries, 18 of them comment on how often it hits its head on boats, boulders and the bottom of the river. (And yes, I know many of the Pokedex entries for earlier Pokemon are repeats. That doesn’t make me wrong.) So, sitting still and waiting to be fed might serve this monster best.

Still. Can it headbang its way to victory in Pokemon GO?

With a Max CP of 2252, Attack of 152, Defense of 143 and Stamina of 216… eh. Better to stick around at the bottom of the river hoping for dull Magikarp to think your mouth is a cave. That Stamina is really nice, but there’s so little Defense to back it up and the Attack stat means you’re not doing a lot of damage. As a Water/Ground Type, Quagsire has exactly ONE weakness, though! Grass. It’s a particularly nasty weakness so huck a handful of lawn clippings at your average Quagsire and it’s going to have a bad time. It resists Fire, Poison, Steel, Rock and Electric. (Due to the goofy way GO calculates damage, that Electric resistance is just a normal one vs being the stronger version you get from an immunity usually. Quagsire is Ground, but it’s also Water so an immunity becomes reduced down to a standard resistance. Whatcha gonna do.)

In terms of Fast Attacks you’ve got Water Gun and Mud Shot, both of which are STAB. Charged Attacks are Sludge Bomb, Acid Spray (Which reduces enemy Defense and so is a very useful move in PVP.) Stone Edge, Mud Bomb and Earthquake which are both STAB. Aqua Tail will be a nice addition to the ol’ arsenal as it’s a Water Type STAB move, which Quagsire has been sorely lacking.

But what about the newest member to the super duper Wooper clan?

Paldean Wooper has only been with us for a short time but it and its evolution are two favorites from the Paldean region! Wooper in Paldea lost a turf war in regards to being able to be in the water. What creature did it lose this war to? No clue! But this forced Wooper up onto the land where it lost the Water Type and gained the Poison Type! Which tracks – Wooper in every other region are said to develop a gooey poisonous membrane around themselves when on land so I guess it just became more and more poisonous over time!

And this forced it into a different mode of evolution. No more Quagsire! We have Clodsire!

Clodsire has taken back those watery spaces that the whole line used to call home. It ferries Wooper from one side of a pond or river to the other to prevent them getting too wet. When it’s attacked, it rams massive spikes up out of its back. It’s literally horrifying! They’re such cute little chocolate frosted donuts then…. boom. Huge white rib-like spines.

Can it spike its enemies in Pokemon GO?

Uh… no clue, guys. It’s not out yet! I usually don’t care to look for leaks or datamines to gain info for unreleased Pokemon because so much can change between now and this monster’s launch.

Shiny Johto Wooper are pink, much like their inspiration – the Axolotl! Paldean Wooper is a pale gray-blue in Shiny. Both should be easy to spot, Trainers!

And that is all I’ve got for you! As always, I wish you the absolute best of luck!