One of the most frustrating things as a collector is not to have a complete set. Having played Pokemon Go for over two years now, I am bothered by the fact that my first generation Pokedex is still incomplete. The regional exclusives have been basically impossible to obtain given my limited travel. While Niantic has release some short-lived events to offer some of these, none have really come my way except for the Farfetched event last year.
However, with the implementation of trading in Pokemon Go this feat is somewhat easier if you know the right people. I have been lucky to be part of a local raid group in my community. One of the local raid guys travel quite a bit for work which is allowing me to get two new entries into my Pokedex: Mr. Mime and Volbeat. Both are European exclusives that he was able to catch plenty of during a recent trip.
The challenge has been that he rarely trades because of the stardust it consumes with those that are not leveled up on friendship. However, I had been strategic on making him one of my first friends that I added and ensured that we would exchange gifts on a daily basis. While some days have been missed, we achieved Ultra Friends status which makes special trades on 1,600 stardust to executed. With that, I was able to convince him to trade me twice in a week to get these new entries into my Pokedex:
Now I am one step closer to getting my Generation 1 Pokedex complete!
Thanks!