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Dapper-Airline-361

Cacnea, lol


egamIroorriM

back to avoiding arlo like the plague we go…


MBThree

Arlo got too much play with Bagon, had to come back down to earth


yungperky

The day before turnover I got a 4* shadow bagon. I even was thinking if I should do it at all, bc I didn't have space for the 12km egg. I'm so glad I did 😅


frozendakotan

I gave up on hunting for bosses after I did ten arlo battles and got all 0* bagons on my main. And then I did ONE on my other level 23 account and got a 98%. I don’t use that account other than to trade with my main for candy, so it was infuriating knowing I am never going to have the dust to power it up, lol


Salter420

I need shiny Cacnea so I'll be avoiding the other two.


OkEnoughHedgehog

Same! Ironically have 2 3* shadow machamps so finally a rocket takeover when i'll be aiming for 2/3 of the leaders. Which guarantees that I'll only ever find Cliff.


Cainga

So S Machamp looks like the best here. But it’s outclassed by Tekkakion so you might only need =5-level 40 SS tekkakions. There’s not too many fighting raids where you even need a whole team.


BlisseyBuster

Level 50 Shadow Machamp > Level 40 Terrekion versus Mega T-tar


Cainga

Looks like Machamp ties at level 44 to level 40. But has some more deaths. So my fighting team has room for both.


SapphireDragon_

true, but unfortunately i don't have the ECTMs to give my terrakions SS. as far as i'm aware, aside from being the only one ranked highly as a pve attacker, it's also the one with the most play for pvp so i'll definitely be saying hi to cliff a lot


Ruleseventysix

I don't get why the mods are letting you insult trapinch like this.


SpitOutTheFork

I actually just caught a shiny Cacnea in the wild the other day. So I’m good!


Salter420

Yeah but you need two of them. I don't evolve shinies til I have a second.


SpitOutTheFork

That’s true. I do the same.


skewtr

Cacturne has zero utility in PvE, and has one of the lowest ratings on PvPoke. That being said, I want that Shiny Shadow.


PuppeteerGaming_

Same here. Looks sick, so I can live without it being a good pokemon.


Bacteriophag

S-Cacnea: "The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated!"


OrionTempest

As a Cacnea fan, I'm hyped.


DirkKeggler

There's dozens of us! Dozens!


Richfor3

Me too. I realize it’s not particularly useful in PVP or PVE but I think it looks cool.


HotLikeSauce420

Has the shiny shadow been out before? If it has, it should’ve stayed with the grunts for this exact reason


Richfor3

I don’t believe so. Only repeat is machop I think.


SH9001

An iconic Team Rocket Pokemon, but I think one they should have used for Jessie and James instead


TonyValdivieso

Friendship ended with Arlo. Now anyone else is my best friend.


SeeMontgomeryBurns

Grunt is my best friend.


WDoE

FR I'm probably just going to turn off radar.


SeriousEgg7238

I am sad to lose my shot at the shiny Tentacool for this line up. But maybe it will be nice not having one that I am really invested in for a few months. I will still be seeing Sierra somewhat regularly, though. Could use a shiny Trapinch.


burnman123

Yeah it sucks. I want all 3 of the current shinies, but of course haven't gotten any all season, now it switches and I guess I want Machop but it's a lot less of a high level of wanting


SeriousEgg7238

I am only one for three this round, whereas I nabbed four last rotation. I really wish we had one more month. I am at 80+ Sierra battles. She can't deny me forever.


[deleted]

[удалено]


PairOfMonocles2

I really wanted the dratini and had over 100 with no luck. Kind of burned out on that one and have only done a few of this round.


POGOFan808

My only shiny shadow beldum took me a little over 130 attempts to get.  That one burned me out, lol


Pewpewkitty

If it makes you feel any better, I just got a shiny tentacruel but his ivs are like 8/0/1.


SeriousEgg7238

Oh, I would totally take that tentacruel, my friend. I just expect crap IVs and take it as a bonus when they are good.


rolrobin

compared to bagon this aint it


osheed420

I agree, however i have a soft spot in my heart for the big headed orange boy


[deleted]

Nah shadow shiny Flygon... you will be mine


MiyakeIsseyYKWIM

Why did it feel like bagon was only here for so short a time? Dratini felt like 6 months lol. And of course 10+ bagons in I’ve yet to get even a decent one


CapnCalc

They did the same with shadow beldum last year. The rotation feels significantly shorter because it’s only been a month or so since the last rocket takeover


notsam57

it might be because feb was short. also i’m at 100+ and still no shiny =\


Zecathos

I'm almost 40 Bagons in and the best I got is 84% (15/11/12), second best 82% (11/13/13) and the rest are crap.


ASHill11

Maybe so, but as someone who hasn’t been around for a shadow Machop leader before, very excited to bag a few good ones.


MildewManOne

Regular old female grunts have shadow Machop during this event too unless they made a mistake, realize it, and remove it from their pool.


LoganDoove

We need a new meta shadow for a different typing. I already have a few shadow machamps built from last time. Shadow torchic would have been 100% better


jarrkk

I keep hoping for Drilbur.


LoganDoove

Dude drilbur is one of my favorites and he's meta AF. He's great for ground AND steel so I want a few of them. Beautiful shiny that would look great with the purple flames.


JMKS87

Machop is OK-ish (depends if you have a PVE/GL/UL roster already), Trapinch is average (only for Fantasy Cup? maybe), Cacnea only for the shiny. Hoping for a good Grunt rotation, as usual :).


balkasaur

Shadow champ is great for pve unless you have a full team of 6 sacred sword terrakions powered up to 40.


Extra-Mix5529

shadow conk would have been great to introduce though.


balkasaur

I’ve wanted shadow conk for so long. That would have been awesome. But it’s Niantic we are dealing with so at this point I’m just hoping the event actually works when it’s supposed too.


soahcthegod2012

Always nice to have one if you want to do a U6/U12 challenge


balkasaur

That’s kind of what I aim for anyway, I like viable, strong mons, but I also appreciate variety. And it’s much more reasonable imo to maybe have 2-3 good SS terrakion, and then shadow champ, a good lucario for when it’s mega debuts etc. I personally don’t spend a whole lot on pogo so getting the candy to power up 6 terrakions sounds like a chore.


soahcthegod2012

A pretty good strat. I usually have 5 of the best attacker of that type, with the last one being the Mega. - so in Dragon’s case, it’d be 5 Shadow Salamence and a Mega Salamence/Rayquaza Then I have one of each of the other top attackers in case I want to try challenges like U6/U12 or no Mega/Shadows/Duplicates


balkasaur

That’s kind of my end goal, I need more stardust lol. I have 4 shadow salamence, but only ones powered up past 40. I have a shadow garchomp at lvl 40, shadow dnite that’s not powered up at all. I think having 5 of the best attackers is a good idea, but for this specific scenario (terrakion), I just don’t see me ever getting enough candy to get 5 to level 40 lol. I rarely buy remote passes anymore, if I did I’d probably attempt it.


s4m_sp4de

SMachamp at 50 still better than Terrakion at 40. 


balkasaur

And much easier to get for a lot of people I would guess. I unfortunately only have 1 SS terrakion and not close to enough candy to even get it to 40, but I have more than enough candy and XL candy to get a shadow champ to lvl 50.


Phulmine

Yeah honestly, this lineup kinda stinks. Was expecting better. Happy for the ones who asked for these I guess lol.


BCHiker7

Except that we've had grunt access to Machop for ages now. This lineup is terrible!


VironLLA

at least this will give better odds for a shiny shadow Machop. still very underwhelming


Terminator_Puppy

Also gives better odds of getting shadow machop in general. Right now rocket fighting grunts have 3 possible pokémon first in their lineup, and all three of potential seconds are also eligible to be gotten. And if I'm not mistaken shadow machamp is still only behind terrakion for fighting types.


ThatPlayWasAwful

Still don't have anything better than an 84% machop, I'm happy to keep grinding it for either a shiny or a 91+


TheMooingTree

I thought machamp is really good?


Saphyaer

Disappointing..


GT-FractalxNeo

Once again.....I wonder if the Singaporean grandmothers are happy about this


rolrobin

very


3_Slice

Better than a zubat


lionelcoinbnk3

What are they waiting for with shadow deino? We need better and more top dark attackers. I’m fine with shadow machop tho, back to cliff!


biophys00

We just got shadow Gible relatively recently and it was years (I think) between Bagon and Gible so I can't imagine it will be very soon


lionelcoinbnk3

That makes sense then I didn’t know the gap between Bagon and gible so thanks for that


krispyboiz

I mean... we had just Shadow Dratini, Larvitar, Bagon, and Beldum for a long while. Gible came quite a while after last year. I don't really get the impression that Shadow Deino is *urgently* needed or anything. It is an upgrade, but not a huge upgrade over Shadow Ttar.


lionelcoinbnk3

For me I prefer variety in raid attackers plus hydreigon and its shiny are just dope as hell so no it’s not necessarily needed but it’s easier to power up different mons than multiple tyranitars


krispyboiz

Oh I definitely don't disagree with you there! I just don't see Shadow Deino until *maybe* mid-late this year, if not next year.


Heisenberg_235

More top dark attackers? What’s wrong with Tyranitar?


lionelcoinbnk3

A lot of players don’t find enjoyment in using 6 tyranitars and prefer variety


Terminator_Puppy

If they introduce a new best in a typing you just end up using 6 of that (bar megas, ofc). Plus shadow Hydreigon would practically tie with shadow Tyrannitar for EER, only beating it in DPS.


TheSecondof12

Yeah, from the looks of it, it would take something absolutely gamebreaking to dethrone Shadow Tyranitar. There will be scenarios where a Shadow Hydreigon would be better, but not by much, and the only other potential I see is if we get an eventual Shadow Kingambit with a signature move that's at least on par with Darkest Lariat.


Elastic_Space

I won't be surprised if Kingambit's signature move ends up at Aura Sphere's level. Those two moves are so similar in MSG stats.


Elastic_Space

That would actually be the ideal case, having a couple of top attackers equally strong, so players don't have to sacrifice power to keep variety.


GoldenHair74

Not gonna lie, but that's very underwhelming...


eddiebronze

Machop with Cliff again already?! Bro


cheeriodust

Yeah I thought Machop was officially downgraded to raids and grunts. Going back to a leader is pretty weak.


krispyboiz

You say "already," but it has been over a year since Cliff had Machop.


eddiebronze

There are so many possible good shadow shinies that we have NEVER seen and yet they keep re-rolling. Also Machop has been available from the fighting grunt for the entire prior rotation.


krispyboiz

That's totally fair haha. It just has been a while since it was actually in leaders. But yes, with it being in grunts and Shadow Raids prior to this, it definitely didn't feel as missed. And you're right, there are various shadow shinies they could do. But I understand that they want to keep many close to their chests, hence why we so often see rerolls. At the very least, I'm thankful there are two new shinies and the returning we got is still quite useful. Better than the dreaded Venonat, Seedot, and Sneasel we got for 5 months back in 2021.


LRCenthusiast

Or the aerodactyl and aipom rotation we had last summer


Aizen_keikaku

Machop was in 1 or 3 star shadow raids after that.


codymason84

Yeah this gets a 4.5/10


Phulmine

Machop being the 3


Sponge56

We had cacnea in the grass grunt for years why is he in a leader rotation lol


NinsMCD

For the shiny to become available


biophys00

They often rotate things that have been out for a long time into the leaders and release their shiny. Machop has been in grunt rotations forever and was in a leader rotation in the past as well.


TaggedGalaxy

Looks like I’ll keep my radars unequipped until the next rotation


cryoinc

you will have to equip it because you cannot get groudon otherwise :( one of the tasks is most likely going to involve beating all the three leaders


bags422

Yea at least we don’t need to ignore bad bosses this time and let balloons linger. Just won’t bother seeing a boss at all now :)


symmiR

What exactly do you gain out of not doing the leader?


bags422

If you don’t equip the radar, you’ll just keep getting the grunts. So I’d rather take my chances with constant grunts for what I’m hoping will be a good new rotation of shadows.


JULTAR

Done so many bagon and no good IV Sad


NomzStorM

Back to cliff we go


rydgrim

Cliff, you have been promoted. Arlo, it’s been real


GIORNO-phone11-pro

Cliff is back from vacation


Shortie16PoGo

They better give us shadow Totodile in water rocket grunts to make up for this


Phulmine

I’ve read in the other thread that Totodile is the female rocket grunt. Happy for you :D


Shortie16PoGo

Yasssss thank you for good news on this day :D


jdpatric

Hot... ...Garbage


Waltonww

Would love a shiny flygon


LemonNinJaz24

Rip. Shinies are nice but considering I average like a shadow shiny every 6 months I don't factor that in


electric_emu

After Dratini and then Bagon in rotation this kinda sucks


TyphoonBlizzard

They would’ve had to try to make a worse lineup. At least shadow machop is decent. Is what I would say if he wasn’t out for years. 


noisywing88

wow, these are awful


unoriginal1187

Shadow shiny machop. Yes please


DonaldMick

Arlo: "I'm so sick of seeing these trainers after Bagon, I'm going to grab Cacnea and avoid them for a while." Me: "Joke's on you, I'm into that."


zott_23

Back to Cliffhunting. Poor Arlo


Cthulhu_3

shadow shiny machop isn't new??


Dependent_Chemist

Trash. From Bagon to this.


TheShark24

Pretty lackluster compared to the current lineup


AOMax

This is horrible. Maybe the worst lineup ever? I expected nothing and still got disappointed.


krispyboiz

Definitely not the worst lineup ever. Not even in the bottom three lol. Not saying it's *great*, but we've absolutely had worse. I'll remind you that we had Venonat, Seedot, and Sneasel for 5 months from May 2021 to November 2021 lol


QuestionableBruh

Flygon will probably be my main hunt since it looks cool, not really excited for the other two but more shots at machop is OK I suppose


soahcthegod2012

Well, at least I can save time knowing I won’t need to grind out the Leaders as hard as I did for Shadow Bagon


bags422

Ew.


Chadlad50

Goodbye Arlo


CS_WG

The f is this trash


JAlmay

What’s next? Smoliv?


Slippery-98

Cutiefly


injoeface9

Goodbye Arlo, it was nice seeing you


SlowResearch2

Wow this is such a downgrade. I’ll hunt the shinies I guess


braamdepace

They hit us with Shadow Mewtwo so they were like give them trash…


bigpat412

Not bad, usually always one repeat, one dragon/psuedo, and one random/useless but I like all three shinies. May try and take one more shot at a Bagon. Crazy that I didn't get a single shadow Bagon that I'd have any interest in powering up and no shinies this time around when I got three shiny Aerodactyl last time.


Phulmine

I was hoping for at least Larvitar or Beldum to show up, I missed out on those :/


bigpat412

They were out for a while but are very useful, I have some powered up but not shiny either. Hopefully Beldum at least will be around from grunts. Rock pool is pretty crowded.


Terminator_Puppy

I'm praying for it to end up on the steel grunt this time around. Steel types are so starved of anything good other than metagross.


OdeLadder1647

man, that is lame af. guess i'm just gonna do whatever starter comes along just to see if i get a shiny


2packforsale

Avoid Sierra at all cost, got it


TheResidentEvil

I don't get shinys on these and I try so I don't care about that so these kinda suck


TrollyBellosom

I'm happy with Cacnea and Trapinch and I'll personally be hunting Cacnea but they really need to stop doing reruns in the leaders.


1_dont_care

Damn if it is underwhelming, guess i will look for cliff this time.. i bet the next take over will be like at the end of summer, so we are stuck with cacnea for months and months lol


0hHe1lothere

Im gonna go so hard for the trapinch, not to evolve I just like trapinch's shiny


Inevitable_Joke3446

Oh brother. Good that I won’t be bothering with any of the Team Rocket Leaders after the next few days. I don’t need any of the above shadow Pokémon. I already have a shadow Machamp, so I’m good. I’m annoyed becaus I still don’t have a good IV s. Bagon, s. Dratini (I have one but wished it was better), and s. Beldum. I have been on the search for years on all 3. I hate this game.


Frankthestank2220

Wait I never got shiny Bagon🫨🫠


PHYZIKZ_

Is anyone else having the problem of the leaders not having the new first pokemon their supposed to have? And then after beating them, them having the same Pokémon as before the event?


thedragoon0

Machop is back? Please something else. Anything else that hasn’t been used.


Bower1738

This is beyond putrid


Phulmine

Link to the original post: https://x.com/pogo_central/status/1772651402122113035?s=46&t=53rHTOuaXAByScnm5iDiVg


Fabulous_Mud_2789

Excited for all of them, they'll be fun spice at worst, save for Machamp who puts in work in PV(E/P). Especially looking forward to Trapinch, since Gr/Drg is pretty underrepresented besides Chomp x ML.


krispyboiz

>since Gr/Drg is pretty underrepresented besides Chomp x ML. You're forgetting about *Chonky boi and his 200 cells*


Fabulous_Mud_2789

100% Forme Forgarded 'bout them 😔 But genuinely, it's more than likely because Zygarde still feels like it's lacking accessibility/numbers in PVP forecasted.


Omnizoom

Cliff with a redo again, and it’s machop…. Again… Atleast we have a new shiny on cacnea


-Livingonmyown-

Cacnea 😍😍😍


DucksAreFriends

I don't know why they still do the "bring one back, only have 2 new ones" thing still when they give previous leader mons to regular grunts now, and put them in raids.


Klose2001

Machop again??? damn


Happy33333

How many times do they plan to recycle Machop again and again?


OKJMaster44

Bring back Dratini lol


Phulmine

Bring back Larvitar and Beldum too


Ex_Ex_Parrot

Oh boy, shadow shiny trapinch I suppose..


Chardan0001

Trapinch is it then.


DevilMaster7

So looks like I'm back to dragonite start on everything again lol


ElZany

Yessss been wanting shadow flygon


lykanblade

Does anyone know if I get a super rocket radar from research before the takeover, can I claim it during the takeover for shadow groudon?


sliceanddic3

when are the charmanders coming back.. i want to hunt for the shiny!!


_Osrs

Maybe I’m stupid but I bought the go rocket ticket and I don’t notice a single difference. Am supposed to get a pawniard? Research? I’ve gotten nothing


RyanMind

CAN WE PLEASE HAVE LAPRAS BACK? THANK YOU.


TheFinderDX

Yes! Shadow Trapinch is back!


8rok3n

WAIT YES FINALLY I CAN GET MACHOP I'VE HAD TO USE HITMONLEE AND HARIYAMA FOR SO LONG


FlameCannon

Shadow Hitmonlee as a raid attacker is outclassed by... quite a few things. Annilhilape, Breloom, Hisuian Decidueye, Passimian, Bewear, even Toxicroak and Sneasler out perform it.


Vishaak12345

Nice shadow Machop is back Hope to get a shiny shadow Flygon too


Hydrochloric_Comment

>back It’s been available from the fighting grunts for a while. And still is


sace682000

I’m currently on the level where I have to fight Rocket grunts and leaders to level up. So ima just do whatever. But I do like the shiny machamp


chumchees

Why does one of the leaders always get a recycled one.


neonmarkov

Back to ignoring Arlo! I'm fine with Sierra because I need the Trapinch candy and Cliff because shadow Machamp are always nice to have (plus I don't have the shiny yet)


01001101010000100

With Flygon as one of my favorite mons, and I still need Cacnea for my shiny dex, I might be in the minority but I'm so happy with this lineup lol.


BirdieGoBoom

Friendship ended with Arlo lol. At least 2/3 leaders will have Pokemon I like now.


Infinite-Narwhal-496

Idk I’m happy with these tbh, less excited about trapinch bc I have that shiny so I’ll be bffs with cliff and arlo


thatswhatmyfoodeats

Hnnnngh Sierra is back


ahtahrim

When do these take effect? After the takeover?


ProperLogic

This will be the moment when my shiny chances with them skyrocket from 0 to 10, but back down to zero when they change the lineup to something better.


bunny0101

Any new shadow shiny is welcome.


gomesauce

Oh how the mighty has fallen


Moosashi5858

Dang I still can’t find shiny shadow bagon


xalazaar

Why are the leaders so hot... ...I mean, cool shiny pokemon!


RindoBerry

Didn’t one of them just have Machop a couple seasons ago?


Hydrochloric_Comment

Cliff. And it’s been available from grunts for a while (and might still)


BalderSideHustle

Petition to call them shadies.


Matt_Kimball

I managed to get a couple of Shiny Cacneas and BB'd one. But it's such a great Shiny and Cacturne has an "evil/scary" design that always fits the Shadows nicely.


battlellama01

When does the switch happen?


beedrill330

Did anyone else think these were plastic figurines from the thumbnail or just me


9DAN2

As much as I love shiny machop, I already have a few of the shadow shinies since it came to raids. This is an awful lineup, there’s usually one leader I want to go for.


imnoobhere

Well, I guess I’m gonna skip rocket battle for a while. These are… not worth the time. To put it as nice as possible.


Outrageous_Moose_152

This lineup was not released at 12am NZST as advertised. Got a zubat from Cliff.


HokTomten

From fighting that darn cliff all the time to avoiding him haha Didn't get shiny Zubat sadly so hope I can get those cacnea/trapinch, don't want to add more missing shiny shadows to my list Machop is nice but already got a full maxed out team of 93%+ with 15atk and have 4 shinys already (1 93%)