POKEMON GO's Newest Event Celebrates The Chinese New Year With Certain Increased Spawn Rates
Niantic are celebrating "Lunar New Year" with a Pokemon GO event pertaining to the Chinese zodiac - which will feature double-XP and "Lucky Pokemon". Find out more...
Pokemon GO's newest event celebrates the Lunar New Year, otherwise known as Chinese New Year, with increased spawn rates based on the Chinese zodiac (via Comicbook.com).
If you're unfamiliar with this particular zodiac, it consists of twelve animals which coincide with a twelve-year-cycle. The new Pokemon GO event takes influence from the Chinese zodiac, with increased spawn rates for Pokemon which best represent the twelve animals of the zodiac.
The animals of the zodiac are as follows: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep,monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Therefore the Pokemon which will spawn more frequently whilst this event is active are: Rattata, Ekans, Mankey, Electabuzz, Ponyta, Dratini, Mareep, Miltank, Torchic, Poochyena, Spoink, and Buneary. Ponyta stands in for horse, Ekans for snake, Electabuzz for Tiger, and you can figure out the rest.
Upon catching and/or evolving these Pokemon, players will recieve double the amount of XP than usual. As Lunar New Year is often associated with the concept of luck, upon trading, players have a higher chance of attaining a "Lucky Pokemon".
There's also a shiny-variant Pokemon in play during this event. A Shiny Spoink, while usually of a dark grey and wielding a pink ball, has peach-coloured skin and a grey ball atop its head. The Spoink in particular was chosen as February 5th, 2019 marks the beginning of the Year of the Pig.
The event has begun and will run until February 13th wherein Pokemon GO's "Valentine's Day" event will take its place.