This week in Pokémon Go (2nd to 8th March): A new season, and Mewtwo returns

Welcome to the second One More Catch weekly newsletter, offering you a guide to the week ahead in Pokémon Go.

If you were looking forward to a more relaxed few days after the double whammy of 'Road to Kalos' and 'Go Tour Kalos Global', you'd be sorely mistaken. Tuesday sees both a Pokémon 30th Anniversary event, which includes the long awaited return of Mewtwo - for free, no less - and the start of a new season, 'Memories in Motion', which ushers in a significant shakeup to the game's regular event schedule.

Dubbed 'Daily Discoveries', there will now be a different activity or bonus for each day of the week. There's a lot of change, basically, and it sounds like the perfect time to subscribe to a newsletter breaking it all down, if you ask me.

So here's a snapshot of everything coming in Pokémon Go this week, and how to get the most from it.

This week in Pokémon Go (2nd to 8th March)

All times are at your local time, unless otherwise stated.

Monday 2nd March

• Precious Paths Finale Timed Research - 10am to 10am Tuesday
  • New Timed Research with bonus encounters with themed Pokémon from this season
• Fast-Track Monday - midnight to midnight
  • All earned Go Pass points (monthly and event-specific) are doubled
• Max Monday - 6am to 9pm
  • Gone is the 6pm to 7pm hour-long focus on one specific Pokémon, to be replaced by additional Power Spots throughout the day, which will all refresh more regularly
  • Though Rookidee is the highlighted Dynamax this week, "different Dynamax Pokémon" will also appear today

Tuesday 3rd March

• 'Memories in Motion' season starts - 10am to 2nd June
  • New seasonal Special Research 'Pressure Rising' debuts, eventually leading to an encounter with mythical Volcanion
  • New seasonal bonuses, Egg pool refresh, and update to Research Breakthroughs - more details on the official site
  • Other game-wide changes include:
• Any evolved Pokémon in the wild now have a chance to be shiny (if it's already had its shiny debut)
• Weekend events will now be on Saturdays, and events will move away from paid tickets to Go Passes, such as...
• Pokémon 30th Anniversary event begins - starts 10am, ends Monday 9th March at 8pm
  • New Go Pass debuts: features Mewtwo encounter on the free track, while on the paid Deluxe track, there's Mewtwo Candy XL, encounters with Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and more
    • There's also 2x Catch Candy and Catch XP bonuses at certain ranks, which be increased to 3x with a paid Deluxe track purchase
  • Any Kanto Pokémon apart from Mewtwo and Mew can appear in the wild "based on their natural habitat", including (rare) Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres spawns
    • Everything in Kanto has a chance of being shiny
  • Ditto will be disguised as different Pokémon throughout the event
  • Raid refresh (all can be shiny):
    • One-star: Pikachu wearing Red's hat, Leaf's hat
    • Three-star: Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise
• Go Pass: March begins - 10am to 7th April
  • Features a Raikou encounter in the free track, and a Timed Incubator in the Deluxe track
• Showcase Tuesday - 10am to 8pm*
  • Showcases will feature "up to 20 different categories" today
  • * This is based on the start and end of Showcases previously, but hasn't been confirmed at the time of writing.
• Go Battle League change - 9pm UK / 4pm EST / 1pm PST
  • Great League, Kanto Cup: Great League Edition

Wednesday 4th March

• Pokémon 30th Anniversary continues
• Raid refresh (the below will appear in raids until next Wednesday)
  • Five-star: Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres
  • Mega Raids: Mega Pinsir
  • Shadow Raids at weekends throughout March: Shadow Latias
• Raid hour - 6pm to 7pm
  • Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres (all can be shiny)

Thursday 5th March

• Pokémon 30th Anniversary continues
• Go Battle Thursday - midnight to midnight
  • Up to 4x Stardust rewards when winning matches, with the number of sets you can play per day increasing from 5 to 10

Friday 6th March

• Pokémon 30th Anniversary continues
• Friendship Friday - midnight to midnight
  • There's bonuses for in-person trades, including:
    • Up to two Special Trades
    • Increased chance of a Lucky Trade and a guaranteed
    • Up to 10% reduction in Stardust cost
    • Guaranteed 2 Candy XL per trade

Saturday 7th March

• Pokémon 30th Anniversary: All Out event begins - 10am until Monday 9th March at 8pm
  • The Pokémon 30th Anniversary event shifts from just Kanto to "most Pokémon that have ever appeared" in Pokémon Go returning as spawns, apart from Mythicals, Ultra Beasts and anything not usually found in the wild (such as feature-specific creatures, those only found in Eggs, etc)
  • Incense will attract Legendary Pokémon "if you're very lucky"
  • Wild Pokémon will appear more frequently in general
• In raids (everything listed below can be shiny):
  • One-star: Pikachu wearing Red’s hat, Leaf’s hat, Ethan’s hat, Lyra’s hat, Brendan’s hat, May’s bow, Lucas’s hat, Dawn’s hat, Rei’s cap, Akari’s kerchief, Hilbert’s hat, Hilda’s hat, Nate’s visor, Rosa’s visor, Calem’s hat, Serena’s hat (that's a lot of hats)
• Five-star: Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Deoxys (Normal Forme), Darkrai, Genesect (No Drive), Nihilego, Guzzlord, Necrozma
• Region-specific raids: Buzzwole (Americas only), Pheromosa (Europe, Middle East, Africa only) Xurkitree (Asia-Pacific), Celesteela (Southern Hemisphere), Kartana (Northern Hemisphere), Stakataka (Eastern Hemisphere), Blacephalon (Western Hemisphere)
• In 2km eggs: All Baby Pokémon minus regional Mime Jr. outside of Europe (all can be shiny)
• Pokémon 30th Anniversary Go Pass progression lifted

Sunday 8th March

• Pokémon 30th Anniversary: All Out event continued
• Double-Time Sunday - midnight to midnight
  • Regular Incense and all Lure Modules durations are doubled
    • Daily Adventure Incense isn't mentioned, so let's assume that isn't included. Will confirm this for next week's newsletter!

Opportunities this week

With the new 'Daily Discoveries' structure, we won't know the full impact of the various daily activates and bonuses until we've had our first run through the week.

That said, there are some clear opportunities to be aware of when playing this week:

• Let's start with the biggie - a free Mewtwo encounter as part of the Pokémon 30th Anniversary event that debuts on Tuesday. While free to all players, it's not available immediately. You'll need to progress through Go Pass to get it, and while the exact rank it'll unlock on is unknown at the time of writing (we have to assume it'll be some way through, likely level 100), you only have a limited time (until 8pm Monday next week) to claim it.

• As with previous Go Passes, you can only progress through a certain number of tiers per day by completing challenges. This changes from Saturday, where the progress cap will be unlocked completely. If you can chip away at the Go Pass all week, that'll take the pressure off - but going by previous passes, know that diving in at the weekend should be enough to secure Mewtwo in time. (The cap lifting coincides with the 'All Out' portion of the event, so there's an excuse to double down on playtime over the weekend anyway.)
• If you purchase the Deluxe (paid) Go Pass, then you'll also get additional daily challenges to help you speed through the ranks quicker, as well as Mewtwo Candy XL, encounters with Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, and more.
• And if you were wondering, yes, there is a chance Mewtwo can be shiny, as will the encounters with Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and any other Kanto Pokémon this week. And if your Mewtwo is rubbish, you can always trade with a friend to reroll its stats (ideally with a Lucky Trade to improve your chances of better IVs).

• For the 30th Anniversary event, from the Kanto-only Tuesday to Friday portion, to the weekend's All Out leg which is set to feature practically every Pokémon all over again, it's hard to judge how it will go: it'll be either be a fun blast from the past, or a scattershot free-for-all. It's very much a case of wait and see, really - thankfully, the promise of a free Mewtwo with enough playtime should give you at least one thing to work towards.
  • What is most particularly tantalising is the idea of Legendary Pokémon appearing as spawns. This comes in two forms: Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos in the wild from Tuesday to Friday, and (almost) every other Legendary Pokémon through Incense from Saturday onwards. All these only appear if you are "very lucky" - in other words, they will be very rare - so it's possible you might not encounter many, or any at all.
    • Even if we have seen most of these Pokémon countless times over the years, the sheer novelty of encountering a Legendary outside of Raids and Research is enough to get me out and exploring.
• Also rolling out Tuesday is the Go Pass for March, which features a Timed Incubator if you get the Deluxe track. In my estimation, this is the best item the monthly pass offers, as not only is it exclusive (Lucky Trinkets, for example, appear regularly, and the chance to get a Lucky Trade can be achieved for free through other means) but it also gives you unlimited uses of a second Incubator for six weeks. Decent value for money, I think - and well timed if you're after Baby Pokémon with the 'All Out' portion of the 30th Anniversary event at the weekend.

What's new in Pokémon and Pokémon Go?

Here's a quick round-up of what you might have missed from the world of Pokémon in the past week:

• Your eyes haven't deceived you: as part of the Daily Discoveries shakeup, Tuesday's Spotlight Hour is seemingly no more. I'll be sad to see it go - it's given me many fond memories over the years, including a recent hunt for Antique Sinistea - and I'd love to know if the useful bonuses that come with it, such as the double Candy transfer bonus, are also a thing of the past.

• Pokémon Presents was on Friday, and the big news of the week was the long-awaited reveal of Pokémon Winds and Waves, and the first Gen 10 starters.
  • These mainline entries won't arrive until 2027, which is a longer wait than expected. The good news is we'll have Pokémon Champions on Nintendo Switch in April, and mobile devices later in the year, to keep us going. Not to mention plenty of Browt fan art.
  • You can read a full breakdown of what else was revealed over on Nintendo Life. As for my predictions ahead of time... well, I at least got a couple things right.

One More Catch notes

Aside from the news that One More Catch is one week old today, here's a quick round-up of site updates since the last newsletter:

• Mid-week I posted a report on how Pokémon Go Tour’s massive in-person lobbies - which featured thousands of players - were quietly tested at Go Fest last year, complete with quotes from Niantic's Michael Steranka about what went down. You can read it here:

Pokémon Go Tour’s massive in-person lobbies were quietly tested at Go Fest last year

“This is one of the few opportunities that we have to get hundreds, thousands of players together.”

One More CatchMatthew Reynolds

• There's also a number of Go Tour Kalos Global guides on the site. For ticketed players, 'Sparkle and Shine' is something you'll be chipping away at for weeks / months to come - and we'll keep our guide updated as new steps are revealed.
  • Hopefully you managed to snag 500 Kalos catches before the weekend was over. I only managed 300 myself, so I look forward to being stuck on that step for the foreseeable.
• Something also spun up in the days since launch is a Latest feed, which can be found at the end of the homepage and site navigation bar.
• Finally, if you want to show your support and get extra posts and various site features, One More Catch's 10% off forever launch promotion is going for one more week. It takes the base tier from an already affordable £4 monthly / £40 annual subscription down to just £3.60 and £36 respectively, and having your backing would mean a great deal as plans for the publication begin in earnest:

That's it from me. Hope you have a great week!