Pokémon Go Community Day, 10/12/2019

Personally, my experience with Community Days in Pokémon Go involves an issue called "optimization". That is, can I get the most out of this event with what has been given and what I've done? It's always a hard question to answer since I don't know what will happen and how things will turn out. The answer may be even harder to discern given the specific particulars for each month.

This month, though, it may be something that many have long awaited. The featured Pokémon is Trapinch, which has long been a speculated Community Day fodder due to its Egg presence, having been in 10 km Eggs before. The exclusive move for its final evolution, Flygon, is the Ground-type Earth Power, which suits its typing, making it potentially useful; as with last month, the move window is also extended. The additional bonus this month is triple XP for captures, which is really more beneficial for lower-level players, not so much players who have reached Level 40 like me.

A few things that make this month a little different than usual is being able to spin PokéStops for 2 km Eggs that contain the featured Pokémon, alongside certain Level 1 raids for them as with that of the previous month. Also, Field Research rewards were also changed slightly: including the usual rewards of Pinap Berries, Great Balls, and Ultra Balls, it is now possible to get a Golden Razz Berry, or even better yet, a possible encounter with another Trapinch, which is similar to the Squirtle one last year, only without a special accessory.

As to how I did this month, even with only a few tens of Pokémon in my storage space, I caught many Trapinch, but I mostly discarded those with lesser stats; however, I didn't raid or hatch an Egg for the Pokémon, and I only found two Field Research Tasks that rewarded the Pokémon. I also caught only two Shiny Trapinch, which is among the fewest of any Community Day Pokémon I've caught. I traded with someone else the ones I caught but didn't want, and got one Lucky one in return, plus another from trading miscellaneous Pokémon. Of all of these, I evolved one with really good stats, the first Lucky one I received, and the best of the two Shiny ones I caught. I also have a few other Trapinch for other considerations and enough Candy stock for future uses.

Based on these results, I suppose I've "optimized" the Community Day enough to get a good result out of it. Others might say it's meager, but for now it seems sufficient. Further plans in the future may benefit from the rest of what I've gained, but that's to be decided later on. Given the same question for any Trainer in Pokémon Go, different answers may be expected just as the answer is hard to discern for me or anyone else.

One year ago: Finding and Re-Finding Players
Two years ago: The (De Facto) Series Mascot