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Ahoy! Happy Lunar New Year! In Pokémon GO there is an annual event to celebrate the Lunar New Year, it has started today. As soon as the Power Plant event, so I'll have a recap post for it sometime later this week most likely. The Lunar New Year event will run through February 7 at 8 pm local time.

During this event there is an increased chance for Lucky Pokémon from Trades and an increased chance to become Lucky Friends when you have an interaction with any Best Friends. Any Stardust received from Gifts during the event will be doubled. It's also possible to make 2 special trades per day, this already started January 31st at 1 pm PST and will last through February 8th at 1 pm PST.

Wild Encounters

• Paras ✨
• Meowth ✨
• Growlithe ✨
• Voltorb ✨
• Hisuian Voltorb
• Magikarp ✨
• Torchic ✨
• Litleo ✨

Rare encounters

• Electabuzz ✨
• Gyarados ✨
• Combusken

All of these with the ✨ emoji could already be Shiny, except for Litleo as Shiny Litleo is making its debut during this event.

Today from 6 pm to 7 pm local time Litleo will be in the weekly Spotlight Hour. A good opportunity to try and find a Shiny Litleo.

For the Pokémon in Raids and in 7 km Eggs please make sure to check out Niantic's blog post: https://pokemongolive.com/en/post/lunar-new-year-event-2022/
The only event spawn in 7 km Eggs is Litleo, all the others won't be spawning in the wild.

We have two Timed Research Challenges, one focused on Friendship and the other on Catching. Here is a list of the tasks. Niantic has confirmed these will reward Litleo and Espurr. My guess would be that all the encounters for individual tasks will be Litleo and the final rewards for both will be Espurr. We'll have to figure that out after completing them.

Event Field Research Task Encounters

• Hatch an Egg: Alolan Meowth ✨ OR Galarian Meowth ✨
• Catch 12 Pokémon: Darumaka ✨
• Send 3 Gifts to Friends: Magikarp ✨
• Send 3 Gifts to Friends and add a sticker to each: Litleo ✨
• Trade a Pokémon: Litleo ✨
• Win a Raid: Espurr ✨

• Catch 5 Pokémon: 25 Gyarados Mega Energy

The most interesting ones for me personally would be the ones that can give Alolan or Galarian Meowth and Espurr, as well as the Gyarados Mega Energy. I still have over 300 and have a Gyarados as a Buddy so I'm gaining it while I walk with it. But regardless the extra energy is always good to have some more in case I switch my Buddy.

I'm not completely sure if the chance for Lucky Pokémon from trading is like doubled, or if the increase is less than that. I have trades just over 30 Snorlax with a friend so far and likely somewhere between 40-50 Pokémon in total. Out of all those trades today we had 2 Lucky Snorlax and nothing else so far. I was hoping at least one of the Ralts we traded would've been Lucky too.

Here are the two Lucky Snorlax I got from the trades.

It's still a pretty low chance from our trades so far. It's a good thing we didn't try with any Chatot, Throh and Unown from GO Fest last summer yet. I think we'll try to wait with those another day.

From this event I definitely don't have Paras as Lucky yet so will definitely trade that one. It rarely spawns and every time I did trade for it, I never got one Lucky. This event will be ideal for them. I think I have all the other spawns Lucky already except maybe for Litleo I'll have to check that.

Paras and Meowth are great catches for Stardust as they both have a base of 500 Stardust per catch. I think Alolan Meowth is even 750, but you'll have to get it from the Event Field Research Tasks mentioned earlier.

It's a bit unfortunate to not see Flareon as an increased wild spawn in the event this year, especially as we had Jolteon during the Power Plant event, but oh well. I guess we can't have an Eeveelution often in the wild two events in a row 😋