Two decades ago, Ash, Pikachu, and friends sent Mewtwo packing. Now, the weirdo psychic feline is back for revenge—not on late-’90s moviegoers but on 21st-century Pokémon players. This weekend, in celebration of Pokémon Day, Sword and Shield players have the chance to partake in a doozy of a Max Raid Battle against Dynamax Mewtwo.
Many players on social media have described it as one of the toughest bouts in the game. Mewtwo shows up at level 100 and has a bolstered health bar. Even if you put your best fighter forward, you’ll likely need to team up with other players to win, and even then, Mewtwo has been straight-up wiping the floor with even the best teams of four.
If you actually manage to beat him, you’ll be rewarded with a treasure trove of rare items. Players online have reportedly earned everything from Rare Candies (which level up your Pokémon) to Ability Capsules (a rare item that changes a single Pokémon’s ability) to Big Nuggets (chunks of gold that sell in-game for an amount that would cover my annual rent). One thing you won’t get? A Mewtwo of your own.
That’s right: Unlike other Max Raid battles, you can’t catch this one. What gives, The Pokémon Company?
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What’s more, getting into a Mewtwo Max Raid in the first place isn’t exactly guaranteed. One Twitter user claimed it took 45 minutes to get into a battle. This checks out with my own experience. Earlier today, I tried for about an hour to join a battle, but was met with various error codes, including multiple instances each of 2617-0502 (“One or more other consoles are not responding”), 2-ALZBA-0031 (“You can’t participate because the entry session for participation has been closed”), 2-ALZBA-0033 (“You can’t participate because the maximum number of participants has been reached”), 2-ALZBA-0034 (“No communication partner was found”), 2618-0501 (“Unable to connect to the other consoles”), and 0420-6969 (“lol you suck”). (Editor’s note: One of these error codes is not real. We’ll let you guess which one.) I had no luck finding a Mewtwo locally, either.
Before you try finding a battle, though, you should ask yourself: What’s the point? It’s tough to set up a battle, and the potential rewards, while rare, aren’t mind-blowing. Rare Candies are nice, but they offer just one level-up. Ability Capsules are cool, too, but you can just get them at the Battle Tower. And if you’re at a high enough level to take on Dynamax Mewtwo, you almost certainly have enough money that even a massive chunk of gold won’t make a difference.
There’s only one truly rare prize you can get from beating Dynamax Mewtwo, and it’s a functionally useless item known as Bragging Rights. Hey, if that’s enough of a reason, you have until 6:59 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 1, to take down Dynamax Mewtwo and join the pantheon of Ash and company.
In addition to Max Raid Battles against Mewtwo—who, again, you cannot catch—you’ll be able to fight Max Raid Battles against the original three starters and their second-stage evolutions. And yes, you can catch these ones. (I came across an Ivysaur, whom I summarily caught…and nicknamed “Mewtwo.” Small victories!) You can also run into a Dynamax Toxtricity, an electric/poison Pokémon with a near godlike Special Attack stat.
More Pokémon battles:
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