Pokemon Go Abra Community Day is live – All the details

Paul Cotton

After a failed attempt last month, the Pokemon Go March (or is it April) Community Day has been rescheduled for April 25. For the first time, there’s a Community Day special research event to look forward to as well.

The announcement of Abra as the headliner comes as a shock to many trainers. This wasn’t because of Abra itself, though – the psychic-type has been considered long overdue to headline a Community Day.

The shock came because odd months have been exclusively headlined by starter Pokemon, although the odd and even theory has been somewhat messed about now. With Abra bucking this trend, this is the first time since Community Days were introduced that a non-starter has headlined an odd month (again we now use odd month loosely).

Abra Community Day April 25
Finally the Abra Community Day is here!

Niantic didn’t provide a reason as to why they deviated from their tried and trusted pattern. However, we can speculate that it was because they are fast running out of starter Pokemon to have headline. We’re already on the Gen 5 starters and Gen 6 species aren’t expected to be released until later this year!

The big difference in this rearranged Community Day is that it will focus on playing from home. That is why, and maybe because of the postponement, that the event will last for six hours as opposed to the usual three.

Three-hour lures are a mainstay of the monthly event but this time around three-hour Incenses will replace it. Elsewhere, 3x Catch XP has been changed to 3x Catch Stardust – something that many trainers will prefer.

Alakazam stats

Abra may be the headliner, but trainers will be looking towards its final evolution, Alakazam. The Psi Pokemon has excellent attacking stats, which is naturally its main selling point.

However, it’s stamina stats leave a lot to be desired which is undoubtedly Alakazam’s weakness. Its full stats are as follows:

  • Attack 271 – 20 of 688
  • Defence 167 – 213 of 688
  • Stamina 146 – 457 of 688

Counter

Counter has been confirmed as Alakazam’s exclusive move for the Pokemon Go ‘March’ Community Day. Usually exclusive moves are Charge Moves but this is a rare instance where a Fast Move has been used.

Alakazam’s other two Fast Moves are Confusion and Psycho Cut. Out of the two, the former has a higher DPS but also a lower EPS. Both Counter and Psycho Cut have similar energy generation but the fighting-type move is a lot more powerful.

With the exclusive move being Counter it allows you to get away from the psychic-types moves. It won’t help you against Alakazam’s vulnerabilities in bug or ghost types, however.

As usual, you will have up to two hours after the Community Day ends to evolve Kadabra and make sure you get the exclusive move. Don’t expect to see too many Alakazams in Go Battle League though.

Special research

For the first time in a Community Day, a special research quest will be available alongside it. It is titled Investigating Illusions and costs $1 (or equivalent in your currency) from the Pokemon Go Shop. It cannot be purchased with PokeCoins.

We don’t know what the specific tasks will be but we do know it is a four-stage research event. The rewards are as follows, with more to come:

  • 13,000 Stardust
  • 1 Poffin
  • 1 Rocket Radar
  • 3 Incense

Considering this special research event is the equivalent of 100 PokeCoins it’s actually good value. A Rocket Radar itself costs 200, so there’s value in that alone.

PvP Battle League
Finally Pokemon Go trainers can compete to find out who the best trainer of all is…

Great and Ultra League CP range

With the introduction of GO Battle League, trainers’ mindsets will now start to look towards what CP range certain species need to be so they are eligible for the Great and Ultra Leagues.

Of course, the Great League has a CP limit of 1,500, while the Ultra League is 2,500. According to OrangeHeart2018, you will need to find Abra at the following CP to make it eligible. If you want to be safe, though, you’ll need to aim for the lower end of these suggestions.

  • Great League: 604-658
  • Ultra League: 1006-1097

What else do you need to know?

Abra has a flee rate of 99%. This means if you fail to catch it on the first attempt it will flee 99 times out of 100. It looks like this has been significantly reduced for the Community Day, however.

This may cause a lot of trainers frustration, especially when coming across a high CP one. It will be interesting to see whether Niantic amend the flee rate specifically for the Community Day.

Elsewhere, as is customary with the monthly event, Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam’s shiny forms will also be released. If you’re playing for the duration of the Community Day (11am to 5pm in in your local time zone) then you should have no problem finding a few shinies.