Community Day July 2021 Guide

• Drastically increased spawns for the Pokemon Tepig
  • Obtainable from catches, and research
  • Debut of shiny Tepig
  • An increased Shiny rate (roughly 1 in 23) during Community Day hours
• 3-hour Incense
• 3-hour Lure Modules too
• 3x Catch Stardust
• Take a Snapshot during Community Day for a Photobomb (up to 5 times)
• One-time purchasable Community Day bundle
  • 1,280 PokeCoins
  • 1 Elite Charge TM
  • 50 Ultra Balls
  • 5 Incense
  • 5 Star Pieces
• Special Research story: Roasted Berries
  • $1 or equivalent local currency
  • does not include an in-game medal
• All Pignite evolved into Emboar during Community Day hours learns the exclusive Charge Move Blast Burn
  • TMs and learning a New Move will not give you this exclusive move
  • Must evolve a Gabite 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.

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 2020's guide, our last before worldwide lockdowns. Consult local guidelines for information on how to play safely, so that you can keep enjoying future events. Be considerate of others.

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.

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 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!

Some Lure Modules

This CD will now also feature 3-hour Lure Modules! Whether or not this bonus will last for future CDs in unknown at this time.

Community Day can also be a great time to earn the Picnicker Badge for other trainers using your Lure Modules that are also out playing.

Definitely Some Star Pieces

If Community Day is one of the only times you find yourself putting in a full 30 minute grind, then this Community Day can be a fine time to use one. This tip could also apply to players with excess Star Pieces. This Community Day provides little to no bonuses otherwise for Stardust, other than Clear or Windy weather resulting in a ton of boosted spawns.

Star Pieces are even more effective if you'll be hatching during the event.

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. More experience can be gained saving lucky eggs for friendship level ups.

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! Go Fest is right around the corner.

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.

Incubators

Despite there being no bonus related to hatching this event, it could be worth Incubating some eggs if you're already planning on having Star Pieces running.

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!
• 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 for Silph badges, and catch up with friends.

Community Day is the best time to make use of the bonus catch candy for Mega Evolving!

While you have a Pokemon Mega Evolved, any caught Pokemon that share a type will award bonus candy.

For Tepig Community Day, the following Mega Pokemon will award bonus Tepig candy; Charizard X, Charizard Y, Houndoom

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 this will not award an in-game badge. Research does not need to be completed before the end of Community Day, though it is beneficial to do so for the increased shiny odds and for the exclusive move. Only base encounters can be shiny.

During Community Day, Field Research Tasks are changed to Catch 3 of the featured Pokemon with the following possible rewards;

• 500 Stardust
• 2 Ultra Balls
• 5 Great Balls
• 2 Pinap Berries
• 1 Golden Razzberry
• Tepig encounter (CP Range: 428 - 464)

Community Day has also been a time when Niantic has experimented with new research ideas, such as all AR tasks giving 3 Rare Candy. Keep an eye out for other limited tasks.

The featured Community Day Bundle will be a one-time purchase, costing 1280 PokeCoins and containing 1 Elite Charge TM, 50 Ultra Balls, five Star Pieces, and five Incense.

Community Day Bundle boxes are limit 1 per account per month and switch 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. Most exclusive moves are Charge moves, so boxes featuring Elite Charge TMs are a better buy. The value lies mostly in how you value an Elite TM, which is generally considered a good buy, but the utility of Elite Fast TMs falls off after you've already obtained a few. This box is probably the worst that features an Elite Charge TM, considering Lucky Eggs and Incense are generally less desired than other premium items.

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!

Emboar will get a significant boost with the inclusion of Blast Burn. This still puts it behind other Fire-type starters and several other legendary and rare options. Short of those, Emboar will be a fine Fire-type attacker.

For Great League Pignite, look for Tepig with CP 794-840 and below to find one that evolves under 1500 CP.

For Great League Emboar, look for Tepig with CP 497-539 and below to find one that evolves under 1500 CP.

For Ultra League Emboar, look for Tepig with CP 824-899 and below to find one that evolves under 2500 CP.

The addition of XL candy to Pokemon Go provides an additional incentive to take Community Days seriously. Events that contain a lot of one spawn allow players to stock up on this otherwise rare resource. Candy can also be converted to XL candy at a rate of 100 to 1. While this rate is obviously unreasonable for rare and Legendary Pokemon, Community Days can allow you to take advantage of this rate. It takes 296 Candy XL to Power Up a Pokemon to level 50.

Community Days are also just a great time to knock out 1/3 of one of the Level 47 requirements which requires that you fully max out 3 Pokemon.

Weather or Not

Weather boost has interesting trade-offs in Pokemon Go that might mean you want to tailor your play towards specific areas and times based on the weather. Tepig is boosted in Clear weather.

Weather boost will result in higher leveled Pokemon with higher IVs, which may be worse for GL, IV-wise. It will also give you higher chances to earn XL candy for each catch and transfer, as the drop rate is tied to Pokemon level. This makes looking for boosted weather a good idea this CD for those looking to max this Community Day Pokemon.

While we're certainly seen more powerful Fire-type Starter Pokemon in previous Community Days, this month marks a return to form and means we're closer to seeing other sweet Pokemon make their Shiny CD debut. Emboar is a sweet shiny too!