Pokemon Go player gets a “Christmas miracle” by catching rare Shiny Legendary with 1% battery

Raissa Jerez

Miracle season is here and one lucky Pokemon Go player proved it by catching an extremely rare Legendary in its Shiny form with only regular Poke Balls and 1% of battery left.

Finding Legendaries in Pokemon Go is not that difficult, as they mainly appear in 5-Star Raid battles and have weekly rotations. However, a few can only be caught in the wild under particular conditions, making the hunting grueling.

The Galarian Birds are part of that group, as they can only be encountered in the wild and by using the Daily Adventure Incense. As if that were not enough, they have an extremely high flee rate, which is why capturing one in its Shiny form, with regular Poke Balls, and with a 1% battery can be considered a miracle.

What are the odds?

A Pokemon Go player shared in Reddit that while traveling on the bus, they decided to pop their Daily Adventure Incense expecting nothing, only to be surprised not just by a Galarian Moltres, but a Shiny Galarian Moltres.

The story continued as the player entered panic mode by realizing their phone only had 3% of battery left. After quickly throwing every Ultra Ball they had and with no results, the player had to resort to regular Poke Balls and hope for the best.

The Shiny Galarian Moltres finally stayed inside the Poke Ball when the phone hit 1% battery, turning the situation into a Christmas miracle.

Fellow users took the comments section to congratulate the player with one saying, “Outstanding. Round of applause!!”, while others posted some creative funny GIFs and memes, and even one suggested they should buy a lottery ticket.

Some decided to share their own stories, with a player adding, “I caught a Shiny Chansey once when I had 1% left, and after I threw the ball, my phone died and when I got home and charged my phone, it was there.”

The reason this is such a tremendous feat is that the Galarian Birds’ base catch rate is around 0.3%, and they have a 90% flee rate, which should have caused the Shiny Galarian Moltres to flee while the player used all their Ultra Balls.

If we go even deeper, even the odds of encountering a Shiny Galarian Bird are low, as they are 1 in 20. It may be the same rate for all Legendaries in the game, but you can find most of them inside a Gym when they appear as 5-Star Raid bosses, while the Galarian Birds have to be hunted in the wild.

Pokemon Go players have been asking Niantic for changes regarding the Galarian Birds for years, with most of them stating that a Legendary should be hard to find or hard to catch, but not both. Let’s hope that with a new year around the corner, some major improvements for the game are in order.