Battle weekend in Pokemon GO

The Battle weekend will be taking place in Pokemon GO as part of the Anniversary event from 12am local time on July 9th 2022 until 23:59pm local time on July 10th 2022
In addition to the additional battles as per the usual battle days, there will be a range of additional boosts active throughout the weekend
Battle weekend
Here is a complete overview of everything happening in the battle weekend
Event Bonuses
- Enjoy up to 20 GO battle league sets each day
- Use a charged TM to help shadow Pokemon forget the charged move frustration
The following leagues will be active
- Great league
- Ultra league
- Master league
Ultra unlock battle weekend event bonuses
- Team GO Rocket balloons will appear every 2 hours
- 1 extra raid pass daily
- Earn 2 mysterious components per battle from defeating team GO rocket grunts
- Encounter legendary Pokemon in GO battle league reward encounters at rank 16 and above
- Earn 5x stardust from GO battle league rewards
- Earn 50% extra XP from raid battles
- Earn 50% extra stardust from defeating Team GO rocket grunts
Shadow Latios
After recently having Shadow Latias, Giovanni now has his hands on Shadow Latios. Battles with Giovanni will now reward shadow Latios as the catch reward.
This is ideal as Latios is better for both PvP and PvE than Latias was
Special Research
Special research focused on Giovanni is available giving a super rocket radar and an encounter with Giovanni himself.
This special research will be available to claim until the end of the season on September 1st 2022 at 10am local time.
Shadow Pokemon
Team GO rocket grunts as well as the leaders Sierra, Cliff and Arlo will all be using different shadow Pokemon. Shadow Geodude, Shinx and Purrloin plus more will be new additions to their line ups
Ultra unlock bonus: blast from the past
During the weekend if you evolve the following starter Pokemon into their fully evolved form they will learn their respective community day moves:
Frenzy plant (charged attack)
- Bulbasaur – Venusaur
- Chikorita – Meganium
- Treecko – Sceptile
- Turtwig – Torterra
- Snivy – Serperior
Blast Burn (charged attack)
- Charmander – Charizard
- Cyndaquil – Typhlosion
- Torchic – Blaziken
- Chimchar – Infernape
- Tepig – Emboar
Hydro Cannon (charged attack)
- Squirtle – Blastoise
- Totodile – Feraligatr
- Mudkip – Swampert
- Piplup – Empoleon
- Oshawott – Samurott
Dragon Breath (Fast attack)
- Charmander – Charizard
Thoughts on the weekend
The boosts for this weekend are really nice.
The 100 battles per day means over the weekend 200 battles could be accumulated which is more than enough for most players to hit rank 20 if they are inclined to try for that.
The 2 components per rocket battle allow you to quickly get rocket radars to face leaders, meaning an incresed chance of 12 km eggs and hence an increased chance of getting the super rare female Salandit
There is large amounts of stardust available over the weekend for doing battles as well as increased XP for competing in raids
All three league formats are available giving variety to players to compete in their strongest league