A Limited Research event featuring Minccino is coming to Pokémon Go to help celebrate the Year of the Rat.
On Feb. 2 from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. in your local time, PokéStops will give out simple tasks to complete to make Minccino appear as a reward.
Note that this is not a Community Day, and Minccino will not be spawning outside of these quests. It will be showing up in five kilometer eggs during and after the event.
How do I get a Shiny Minccino?
Shiny Minccino will spawn from the Limited Research task rewards at a fairly high rate. It will definitely take more than one task to find a Shiny Minccino, though.
If previous Research Day Shiny rates are consistent, you should expect to get one Shiny Minccino after about 20 encounters, but it’s also possible that you run into a string of bad luck and end up with nothing.
How do I make the most out of the Limited Research event time?
Head over to an area with tons of PokéStops. Since you can only complete one task per PokéStop, you’ll want access to many of them to collect Minccino candy and to try to grab a Shiny.
You can also complete the task to take it out of one of the three task slots, without catching the Minccino. When you trigger the encounter, just run, and it’ll save the encounter for later. This way, you can stack many Minccino encounters and then pop a Lucky Egg or Star Piece to rake in the XP and Stardust as you rapidly catch them one after another.
If you’re deciding which Minccino to evolve at the end of the day, try using one of the new search strings. Sort your ‘mons by “recent” using the lower right icon, then type “4*” in the search box at the top. This will let you know if you have any 100% IV Minccino. Most people won’t be so lucky, so next you’ll want to type “3*” in the search box, which will show you any recent ‘mons that are 80% or above. Appraise these to see which one is best and then evolve your new buddy!