Pokemon Go Rivals Week 2021, featuring new Pokemon

ByAdam B Hours
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Pokemon Go Rivals Week event 2021

Pokemon Go has revealed the details of another upcoming event, this time its Rivals’ week! The event will focus on pairs of rival Pokemon, and will even introduce a few new ones.

I’ll be covering all the details known thus far about the event – if you’re only interested in a particular portion such as the egg or raid changes, keep an eye out for the respective headers.

When is the Pokemon Go Rivals’ week Event?

The Rivals’ week will start on Pokemon Go on April 13th at 10:00 AM local time, and will run until April 18th at 8:00 PM local time.

As a week event, this duration is about what you’d expect – so there’s not much to note here rather than the times themselves.

What can we expect from Rivals’ Week?

As you may expect from the name, the Pokemon Go Rivals’ week event focuses on pairs of Pokemon rivals – such as Zangoose and Seviper, who will feature throughout the event.

The event features a number of changes, including Pokemon being added to the game for the first time, different Pokemon appearing in the wild, and even different Pokemon featuring in 5km Eggs and Raids.

The new Pokemon released during Rival’s Week

Moving immediately to what will be the obvious focus of the event for the majority of players, lets talk about those new Pokemon being added to Pokemon Go first.

The two new base-form Pokemon added during Pokemon Go’s Rivals week 2021

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As shown here, both Skrelp and Clauncher are coming to Pokemon Go during the Rivals’ week – alongside their evolved forms Dragalge and Clawitzer, respectively.

Pokemon Go in game images for these new Pokemon additions are not available at time of writing, so I can’t show you precisely how they’ll look in game in this article.

With that said, both are going to appear in the wild, raids and during field research – so you’ll have plenty of chances to find out for yourself the usual way.

Wild-spawns during the Rivals week event

Aside from the newly introduced Pokemon covered above, all of the following will be making appearances in the wild for trainers to catch:

  • Hitmonlee
  • Hitmonchan
  • Makuhita
  • Meditite
  • Zangoose
  • Seviper
Seviper and Zangoose are Rival Pokemon that feature heavily throughout this event.

Notably it is not yet clear regarding Zangoose and Seviper whether they are region-locked as usual or if the event will allow them to be found in areas they cannot be found normally.

Expect to see a lot of the one local to your area, but hope to see both of them, in other words.

Egg hatching changes during Rivals week

All of the following Pokemon will be available from 5KM eggs during the event:

5KM Eggs:
  • Machop
  • Tyrogue – No shiny available.
  • Elekid
  • Magby
  • Makuhita
  • Meditite
  • Zangoose
  • Seviper

Of these, only Tyrogue has no shiny variant available – so egg hatching may be productive for those shiny hunters out there missing any Pokemon off this list.

Notably for anyone seeking any of Tyrogues evolved forms during the event, both wild Hitmonlee and wild Hitmonchan can be shiny if found in the wild.

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Raid Changes

You can expect to see the following new Pokemon in raids throughout the event.

New Raids
  • Skrelp
  • Dragalge
  • Clauncher
  • Clawitzer
  • Therian Forme Landorus – 5*
Therian Forme Landorus backgroundless
Therian Forme Landorus will be appearing in 5* raids during the event, Credit: Bulbapedia

READ MORE: Pokemon Go: Therian Forme Landorus release

It should be noted that Therian Forme Landorus’ release basically coincides with this event – it isn’t particularly related to this event, it just happens to release during it.

Additionally, you can expect all of the following Pokemon to be making appearances in raids alongside them.

Returning Raids
  • Nidoqueen
  • Nidoking
  • Zangoose
  • Seviper

Other event bonuses

Rivals’ week in Pokemon Go also has a number of small bonuses thrown in for those of you who don’t think everything so far is enough.

As you might expect from an event of this size, there’s an event-exclusive field research. The rewards of which include encounters with rival pokemon such as Skrelp and Clauncher.

If you’re not terribly interested in the new Pokemon, you might be more interested in knowing that Team Go Rocket is expected to be making far more appearances in both Pokestops and Balloons during the event.

And as an added bonus on top of those, Co-op raid battles can be completed to earn a doubled capture stardust bonus that lasts for the rest of the duration of the event itself.

But really, who cares about those when we get this magnificent monster with this event?

The Pokemon Clawitzer, added to Pokemon Go during the 2021 Pokemon Go Rivals' Week event.
The Pokemon Clawitzer, Credit: Bulbapedia

READ MORE: Pokemon GO Referral Program: What is it?

In any case, that’s everything there is to know about the upcoming Rivals week event in Pokemon Go – best of luck with whatever goal you try to pursue, Trainers.