During the Halloween event Niantic announced a Special Raid Challenge with Gengar that would take place today on November 3. Which is two days after the Halloween event concluded, I suppose they just didn't want to do this one during the previous weekend so close after the start of the Halloween event.
The Raids took place on the usual times that a Community Day takes place and when we had the Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres Days. Gengar has a chance to be encountered Shiny in this Special Raid Challenge, and I assume its Shiny variants will stay available in the game now. Which would mean that, starting today, Gastly and Haunter should also have a Shiny encounter chance. Gengar caught from these Raid battles know the fast attack Lick, which is a better Ghost type move than its Hex attack.
Once again we can get up to 5 free Raid Passes from Gyms today so that everyone has a chance to participate in at least a few Gengar Raids today without requiring Premium Raid Passes.
With the group that we often take over a Gym in the Eeveening we made plans to gather at the Wooden Tree Sculpture Gym in the local park to start there and then do 6 Gengar Raids in the city centre. We were there, but no Genger Raid showed up when the event started. Then we realised there is an EX-Raid there on November 7, so it makes sense there are no Raids on that Gym now. Thus we decided to go to the Gym we would do 2nd and start there.
After our first Raid we decided to walk to a Gym a bit further away, so that we could still end up doing the 6 Raids we had planned now that we couldn't do the one in the local park. So we walked there and then after that Raid we walked back to the other Gyms in the city centre.
While we were walking back and almost at the 3rd Gym we were going to Raid at I managed to catch a Shiny Pinsir! One of us already caught one while we were on the way to the 2nd Gengar Raid, and it turned out I became lucky on the way to the 3rd one. On November 1 the Safari Zone event in Tainan, Taiwan started through November 5, bringing Shiny Pinsir into the game. This weekend it seems like wild Pinsir spawn rate has increased globally, as we saw several Pinsir spawn while going from one Gym to another.
After we defeated the 3rd Gengar it turned out Shiny for me, so just moments after I caught the Shiny Pinsir! That was great! And at the 4th Gengar Raid I managed to encounter a 2nd Shiny Gengar! This time I didn't attempt to take an AR picture as there's a local market in the city centre on Saturday and it was too crowded to get a good AR photo.
Our 5th Raid was at the Houten Schip Raid, which is also an EX-Raid eligible Gym where we had an EX-Raid earlier this week. So by doing this Gengar Raid here we have a chance to get an invite for the next EX-Raid invite distributions. After that we moved to the last Gym we were going to Raid at today.
From the 6 Gengar Raids we did I managed to catch all 6 of them rather easily. Catching two Shiny Gengar was definitely nice! The only downside is that you can barely see any difference in colour for it, at least the stars for Shiny make it easier to see. After taking a picture of the Gengar I caught I realised that after I caught my two Shiny Gengar I caught two more with the same CP as the two Shiny ones. That was interesting to see.
At the 3rd Raid we were doing a mother and her little kid joined us for the Raid and continued with us to the next 3 Raids that we were going to do. When we finished the 4th Raid his mother asked if one of us could try to catch the Gengar for her son, because he wasn't able to catch it yet and only had 1 Premier Ball remaining. I tried to catch it, but unfortunately failed to do so.
Then at the next Raid he tried catching it again himself. When he had two Premier Balls left he asked if I could try to catch it again. So I tried and managed to catch it for him this time! Which made him happy :D At the last Raid when he had 3 Premier Balls left I saw him looking around a bit worried about not being able to catch this Gengar either. So I asked him if he wanted me to try and catch it again. He said "yes please" and gave the phone to me. I managed to catch this one for him too, so that made him even happier! :D Which also made me happy to see him happy.
Did you go out for this Special Gengar Raid Challenge? Have you been able to encounter a Shiny?