Finally, after nearly a year of waiting, I recently received an Ex raid pass, following a raiding session I did in Hyde Park, during the nice weather of the 19th and 20th May. Niantic did confirm, a few months ago, that they had made it easier to qualify for the Ex raids by increasing the numbers of Ex raids hosted and the number of invites sent. However, despite these changes many, myself included, still seemed to be getting overlooked.
I gave up chasing an invite, a while ago. After a number of raiding outings where I targeted mainly Ex raid confirmed gyms, and yet still seemed to miss the invite train. However, such disappointment is now, at least in my case, in the past. I was a little concerned to see that the date and time was set during office hours. The Ex raids aren’t exactly new anymore, and I was concerned at the number of people who would be willing to book a day off work to attend. However, I need not have worried, as our crowd totalled an excess of sixty players by the time the raid kicked off, with enough to make multiple Mystic and Valor raids.
Mewtwo is not hard to take down with half a dozen or more players. With fifteen in my group he went down pretty fast. Nor does he seem to be that hard to catch, as long as you golden razzberry him and throw sensibly. Of the crowd at my raid, I’m not aware of any who went home disappointed. Getting the invite is certainly seems to be the tricky bit. The frustrating thing is that nothing you do can guarantee you an invite. It can only increase your chances.
For those of you who are still chasing your first Mewtwo, here are a few tips. Ex raids are not available at all gyms. Only certain gyms are known to host them. Most of these gyms are located in parks and public spaces. In seeking an invite, it’s not advised that you just raid daily in your one local gym because if it isn’t and Ex gym then it will never result in an Ex raid pass. The best way to find Ex Raid Gyms is to search Google for known Ex Raid locations in and around where you live. If you happen to live in or around London then a lot of the gyms in and around Hyde Park are Ex Raid Gyms.
Unfortunately, no matter how many Ex raid gyms you raid at, it’s still a matter of chance as to if you get an invite. Obviously, the more you do the higher your chances, but I’ve done in excess of five raids in a day before and still not received an Ex Raid Pass. In the end, I elected to just forget about chasing the Ex Raid pass and to raid solely in order to get the newly released legendaries, getting one was a nice surprise when it happened.
When you do finally get the raid invite, Mewtwo is weak against Dark, Bug and Ghost. Tyranitars are particularly good ones to go for as are Gyarados with Bite as their fast attack. Mewtwo is also good to use against himself as well as his other form Mew, as both are good attackers and take less damage. Mewtwo is easy enough to defeat with around half a dozen decent levelled and well equipped players but be prepared to review mid battle with a smaller group as Mewtwo does hit hard. With fifteen players, I only lost a couple of pokemon.
For those of you who gave up chasing a Mewtwo in 2017 then it may just be worth another try. Since then Niantic have changed the formula to give casual raiders a better shot at getting an invite and while it is still possible to strike out, reports do indicate that the new formula is working. I’m certainly happy to finally have mine.
