Pokémon Go has Ponyta Community Day event on Saturday, September 14, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.in your local time zone.
As expected for a Community Day event, both Ponyta and Galarian Ponyta will appear in huge numbers, and the likelihood of them looking shiny is high. There are also a few other bonuses and perks that we have listed below.
How to catch shiny Ponyta in Pokémon Go?
According to ancient research conducted by the now defunct website The Silph Road (via Wayback Machine), the shiny Pokémon rate during Community Days is around 1 in 24, meaning that if you play throughout the entire three-hour period, you should find quite a few shiny Pokémon.
If you’re compact on time or Poké Balls, you can shoot out the incense, then quickly tap each Ponyta to check for any shiny ones, avoiding the ones that aren’t shiny. It’s worth noting that any Ponyta you’ve already tapped will be facing the direction your player is facing, so that should support identify which ones you may have already checked.
What move does Ponyta’s evolution learn during Community Day?
If you evolve Ponyta or Galarian Ponyta into Rapidash or Galarian Rapidash between 2:00 PM and 10:00 PM local time, it will learn a charged move Wild cargo.
If you miss the opportunity to evolve it during this period, you will likely be able to do so during the Community Day weekend event in December to earn Wild Charge. If you don’t want to wait, you can employ Elite TM to earn the move.
How is Rapidash doing in the meta?
For PvE content, you won’t need to employ Rapidash or Galarian Rapidash. Kantonian Rapidash is better than many Fire-types, including Reshiram, Chandelure, Blaziken, Blacephalon, and even Flareon, to name a few. Galarian Rapidash is a decent Fairy-type attacker with Fairy Wind AND Play challengingif you missed Tapu Legendaries. It’s also outranked by quite a few Pokémon (Gardevoir, Sylveon, Primarina, Florges), but it still works if you need it.
In PvP it’s the other way around. Galarian Rapidash won’t be used, but Kantonian Rapidash is actually a decent contender for Ultra League when set up with Burn, Wild cargoAND Flame charge.
How to make the most of Ponyta Community Day?
During Ponyta Community Day the following bonuses will be lively:
- Triple Stardust for Catching Pokémon
- Double Candy for Catching Pokémon
- Doubled chance for level 31+ Trainers to earn XL Candy by catching Pokémon
- The incense lasts for three hours
- Bait modules last for three hours
- Ponyta gets into trouble while taking pictures
- One additional special trade
- Stardust trading cost halved
With that said, you should definitely open up Star Piece and Incense and try to get your hands on some Ponyta.
Ponyta and her Galarian form have different types, meaning you’ll have to Mega Evolve different Pokémon to earn bonus Candy. It doesn’t matter which Ponyta you focus on, because both have the same type of candy to evolve and power up. In the case of the regular Kantonian Ponyta (fire type), you can Mega Evolve Charizard, Houndoom, BlazikenOr Groudon (via Primal Reversion). In the case of Galarian Ponyta (Psychic type), you can Mega Evolve Alakazam, Slowbro, Gardevoir, Medicham, Wide, LatiosOr Rayquaza.
In addition to all of this, Niantic is still running special four-star raids from 5pm to 10pm, where if you complete the Ponyta raid, a Ponyta will spawn within a 300-meter radius around the gym for 30 minutes. These raids cannot be done remotely. If the regular spawn boost from 2pm to 5pm doesn’t get you the Ponyta you wanted, you can try the raid for another chance.