Welcome to the latest One More Catch weekly newsletter, offering you a guide to the days ahead in Pokémon Go.
It's another non-Tuesday event week, meaning the return of Explore, Catch, Battle after just a fortnight. Thankfully, there's some welcome Pokémon in the Wednesday raid refresh and Spotlight Hour, and a Community Day to look forward to on Sunday to keep us busy.
So here's a snapshot of everything coming to Pokémon Go in the days ahead, the biggest opportunities available, and a roundup of Pokémon news and site updates you may have missed.
Events in Pokémon Go this week (10th to 16th August)
All times are at your local time, unless otherwise stated.
What to know about this week
Here's what jumps out to me in the days ahead:
Choose a Path returns
As a non-event week, Choose a Path - also known as Explore, Catch, Battle - returns on Tuesday with Venom and Vines.
Assuming it works the same as the recent Fossil Fun, Charged Embers and Fairy Trail editions, this presents you with six choices every day, each with a different bonus and a different set of Timed Research to complete. You can change your bonus each day to suit whatever your focus is, with the Timed Research rewards offering encounters with the highlighted Type - this time being Poison- and Grass-type Pokémon.
(You can also get a version of the quest with just three choices for the entire week, if you're unlucky - which I got last time.)
A community-voted Community Day
As voted for by the community back in May, this Sunday is Nickit Community Day. (That's right, Sunday - meaning Scopely Explore's recent push for Saturday-only events has seemingly come to an end.)
As always, expect boosted spawns for the highlighted Pokémon during event hours (2pm to 5pm), with extra spawns appearing at Lure Modules until 9pm, as well as an increased chance of finding a shiny.
The Gen 8 Dark-type Pokémon can evolve into Thievul and learn Icy Wind on the day (or with an Elite TM later), helping it become an interesting PvP / Go Battle League pick. It's otherwise not much to shout about in PvE / raids, and as (what I believe to be) the first two stage evolution without anything noteworthy (such as multiple forms or a high Candy evolution requirement) then it's a pretty straightforward Community Day that's not worth getting excited over. Well, at least the shiny looks neat!
- Some extra Community Day tips:
- Don't forget to have a Mega Evolution active for additional Catch Candy. With the Dark-typing, you have a few options - including Gyarados, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Sableye, Sharpedo and Absol - so simply pick the one you have most levelled up for the biggest gains.
- As well as double Catch Candy bonus (if you can save any rare Pokémon from Field Research or the Go Pass until the event, then do so) there's also 3x Catch Stardust, so chuck on a Star Piece if you're planning to play the event in earnest.
- If you haven't got it already, Pancham's Special Evolution into Pangoro requires catching 32 Dark-type Pokémon with Pancham as your Buddy - so use this afternoon as the opportunity to do so.
The best two Ground-types arrive in raids
From Wednesday, Groudon and Mega Garchomp will appear in raids for a week. These are the two best Ground-type attackers in the game (Primal Groudon at least, though regular Groudon is no slouch) so if you haven't got a decent one of either yet, now's the time.
The Wurmple's turn
I would rarely highlight a Spotlight Hour Pokémon, but since it's a quiet week: Wurmple appears en masse between 6pm and 7pm on Thursday. Since its evolution outcome is random, this means you can catch plenty to ensure you get everything you need for your 'dex entries (especially if you manage to grab some shinies along the way).
What's new in Pokémon and Pokémon Go?
Here's a roundup of the biggest stories from the week:
- Last Monday saw the arrival of a Lego Store collab, which features a Pikachu raid encounter with a Lego Special Background, Timed Research, a Stamp Rally, and Lego stickers for showing up to participating stores in UK, US, Australia, Poland, France and Germany. Here's a guide with Lego Store locations and more details of how the collab works.
- Whether you can make it to a Lego Store before the event ends on 30th September or not, there are two promo codes you can redeem, one of which gives you some Timed Research:
- LEGOxPOKEMONGOxCAP (Timed Research)
- LEGOxPOKEMONGOxBERRIES (5x standard berries and 10 Poké Balls)
- Whether you can make it to a Lego Store before the event ends on 30th September or not, there are two promo codes you can redeem, one of which gives you some Timed Research:
Matthew Reynolds
- Here's something I missed until I saw this reddit post from earlier in the week - the Explorer Gadget is back if you had it previously? Check your inventory if so, as it's there for me. Looking forward to giving this another go until it's inevitably taken away again.
- In datamining news, there looks to be a Gible Community Day Classic in mid-September, the name of the new season being revealed, and a variety of powerful 'plus' moves that look to be rolling out to Mega Evolutions.
- Pokémon has teased a collaboration with the European Space Agency during this year's World Space Week, which runs between 4th and 10th October. There's not much to go on right now, but there is some cute art of Pikachu wearing an ESA astronaut outfit while we wait for more, which you can see in the link.
Matthew Reynolds
- Pokémon Champions saw a new season this week, and it's perhaps the least eventful yet, with pretty much just a rank reset and a Battle Pass update. We were due a new Regulation and possible roster update, but I guess changing the meta so close to Worlds this month would have been a bad idea. Season M-6 in September, meanwhile, will likely bring the goods.
Matthew Reynolds
One More Catch notes
There's not much to report beyond the guides and news posts mentioned earlier! I've managed to finally progress past step 6/10 of Masterwork Quest Sparkle and Shine's dreaded 'Earn 30 Souvenirs from your Buddy' step. Yes, I did the trick, but it only helped for many 10 or so Souvenirs, so glad to finally get this out the way.
finally (Earn 30 Souvenirs from your Buddy complete)
— One More Catch (@onemorecatch.site) 2026-08-06T20:41:51.257Z
I also visited another National Trust property (Hanbury Hall) since last week's newsletter, so expect a new extra tips and photos coming to my National Trust locations guide. (The UK collab which, as a reminder, was recently extended until the end of the year.) Here's a photo of a cute drawing which may or may not make it into the update:
That's the end of this week's newsletter! As usual, we wrap with a reminder that you can subscribe to One More Catch for bonus articles, extra site functionality such as ad-free browsing, and as a way to show your support for the newsletter and site in general.
Thanks for reading - you can also follow One More Catch on Bluesky, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn for extra updates between newsletters.
Hope you have a great week!
