Now that it's August the Field Research system in Pokemon Go has updated to deliver a new set of tasks, and the research breakthrough gives you a chance to catch the legendary beast Raikou. I was excited about this because I never had the opportunity to get into any raids when Raikou was a raid boss. I managed to get enough stamps to finish my research this morning and caught my first one (and took an AR photo with it posed majestically on the Delta Ponds Pedestrian Bridge).
However, my main focus for the day had been preparing for my first EX Raid. I got my first invitation for an EX raid last week and it was scheduled for today. I found the invitation to be slightly amusing because it's asking me to go to “Solar System – Uranus”, although it really meant the scale model of the planet that's near the bike/pedestrian path near the river rather than the actual celestial body. I wasn't sure how many people would be there, if any, so I tried to put together the best team I could for fighting a Mewtwo raid boss. I didn't have the optimal counters, but I think I put together a decent team. The EX raid wasn't scheduled until the afternoon but I happened to pass an Alolan Raichu raid on my normal morning walk, so I decided to try out my anti-Psychic team against it, and it seemed to work pretty well (and the gym was close to the riverbank so I walked down to pose Alolan Raichu surfing over the water for the AR pic).
I arrived at the park where the EX Raid was scheduled a few minutes early. I didn't know if anybody else would be there, and when I walked by the gym there didn't seem to be anybody obviously waiting, although I noticed a few people using phones in a very Pokemon Go-ish fashion so I figured they might be there for the raid like I was. Eventually a few people showed up and started standing around, apparently many of them are part of a more coordinated group than I am. They said they had agreed to start at 1:45, so I stood around waiting (which felt super awkward, but I was excited about the opportunity to do the raid). They delayed the start from 1:45 because two of their other friends wanted to join but weren't there yet – they had stopped to get pretzels in the nearby mall and were still walking toward the pedestrian bridge that leads to the park. I found that pretty aggravating, but since I knew I wouldn't be able to take the raid solo there was really no alternative except waiting until the other people were willing to start. When the pretzel pair arrived we had a group of 14 for the raid and we beat it pretty handily.
I used Golden Razzberries and managed to hit the Mewtwo with several great-throw curveballs, but it broke out of the pokeball for the first five. I was getting pretty nervous that I would run out of balls without catching it, but I got it on the sixth try.
It might not have the best IVs, but I'm pretty happy to have one. I wasn't sure if I would even get an invitation since I'm not heavily into raiding like players who play in groups, and I wasn't sure if other people would show up even if I did get an invitation, so I think its' pretty cool that it all worked out (even with all the awkward standing around involved). Yesterday I also got an invitation for a different EX raid happening next week, so I'll probably go to that one, too.