Datamines have revealed stat-improving items may be coming to Pokemon Go. In the main series, items such as Bottle Caps boost your Pokemon’s IV stats in order to make them more powerful, and act as a shortcut to getting a competitive team together.
I lauded the ease at which the main series started giving you Bottle Caps, as the barrier of entry for competitive play – whether that be matches on the ranked ladder or VGC tournaments – was too high. Adding items like this allows players to have a better chance of trying out competitive play, which results in a healthier scene for us all.
With the announcement of Pokemon Champions, a game that looks like an official version of Pokemon Showdown, the future of Bottle Caps is unclear. I suspect that Champions will act as a practice arena, and you’ll still need to train your own teams in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet for real competitions. However, there’s a world in which tournament play occurs entirely in Champions.
How To Use Bottle Caps In Pokemon Go
But Bottle Caps will be used differently in Pokemon Go. Firstly, training monsters for PvP in Pokemon Go is a little different. In the main series, you generally want to maximise IVs. Yes, there are exceptions – a Trick Room team wants low Speed stats, while if you’re going all-in on calcs, your Special Attackers should have a low Attack stat in order to ward against confusion and Foul Play. Otherwise, you want 31 across the board.
That’s not the case in Pokemon Go. No matter what Pokemon you’re using, no matter your strategy, you want your Pokemon to have high Defence and HP stats, and as low an Attack stat as possible. There are different break points for each Pokemon, but generally you want your Attack low so you can power up your monster to a higher level within the 1,500CP confines of Great League.
The same applies to Ultra League, but not Master League. Since competitive play always uses Great League constraints, we’ll focus on that.
So what are Bottle Caps useful for in Pokemon Go? Raids. You want your Raiding party to be as strong as possible. The minor incremental advantage from having a ‘perfect’ Pokemon is the core gameplay loop, and the reason we all commit to so many Raids as it is. This is a game about grinding. Grinding to get better stats. Grinding to get more shinies. Grinding, grinding, grinding.
Pokemon Go Bottle Caps Could Devalue Your Hard Work
The difference between a 98 percent IV Pokemon and a 100 percent Pokemon is negligible. Barely noticeable. You won’t lose a Raid based on that discrepancy. However, 100 percent IV Pokemon have achieved mythical status in the Pokemon Go community simply because they’re perfect. We’re all chasing the hundo because it’s the best, not because we need the best.
Scarcity breeds value. And what’s more scarce than a shiny Pokemon? A shiny Pokemon with 100 percent IVs. Known colloquially as ‘shundos’ in the community, these are the most sought-after Pokemon in the game. I’m a level 44 player who has played almost every day and since before the game was officially released, and I have one shundo. I remember the moment I caught it. We were about to enter a Raid when a fellow Raider complained about the fact his three shundos were all useless Pokemon. “At least you’ve got a shundo,” I responded in jest. The rest is history.
This is one of my fondest memories of the game. Frankly, it’s one of my fondest memories of playing any game, ever. Not because of the Kyogre itself, but because of the reaction of everyone I was playing with. These moments are better shared.
Bottle Caps could ruin these moments. I had a look through my monsters and found three shiny Pokemon with 98 percent IVs. I could use one Bottle Cap on each to take my roster of shundos from one to four. The Tyranitar would be cool (despite being a rubbish shiny), but Sawk and Huntail? I don’t even remember where I caught them. They would just be shundos for shundos’ sake.
There are Pokemon I could power up with multiple Bottle Caps (if that’s an option) which have great memories behind them. My shiny Rayquaza is just three IVs away from being perfect. I remember catching it vividly, on the day the shiny was released. I did around nine Raids with a group of around 50 people, catching four shinies in the process. This 93 percent was my finest, and I’d upgrade it to a shundo in a heartbeat if I could.
But it won’t feel the same. It’ll be a marginally better Raid attacker, but using an item to make it the very best like no-one ever was just feels like cheating. Not cheating in a pay-to-win sense. Cheating myself out of the memories I could have created. Feel free to engage with the mechanic as much or as little as you want. Like I say, that Rayquaza will always call to me. But an artificial shundo just won’t feel the same. It won’t have those memories attached to it. And without the memories, what’s the point in Pokemon Go?
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