Pokémongo: Ex-raids Testing Expanded!

Ever since Ex-Raids were announced the members of the Pokémon Go community have been impatiently for their first ever chance at catching a Mewtwo. Well, we have some good news for you guys. It’s been almost 3 or 4 days since the initial tests have started.

Our latest intel tells us that the EX-Raids are expanding slowly, at least as of now there are 12 known locations in the world. All of these locations are limited to a certain area, which is causing an issue with conducting studies. We really hope that these EX-Raids expand to more regions over the coming weekend. So that all the trainers in the world can get a chance at catching Mewtwo.

Till now, all the Ex-Raid bosses have been Mewtwo, which is leading us to believe that Ex-Raids will be used as a way to give out legendary Pokémon like Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Lugia, and the legendary beasts. At this moment there is no official word from Niantic what will they using EX-Raids for. We are expecting that we see some sort of official announcement after the testing phase is done with.

Additionally, the time window of EX Raids has been reduced from two hours to one hour and EX Raid Passes are distributed 24 hours before the raid. This is an expected change, as Niantic has previously stated that they will be experimenting with “eligibility requirements, frequency, times, locations, and durations”.

We have compiled a list of places where EX-Raids are happening frequently.
Japan
Tokyo – Kinshiku Park “Kinshikuen east side entrance”
Tokyo – Shibuya Hikarie
Tokyo – Shinagawa
Miyagi Prefecture – Gotokudai Park “Fourth Yokozuna Valley Wind”
Nagano Prefecture – Nagano City “Chitose Shrine”
Aichi-ken – Tsurumai Park
Osaka prefecture – Tempozan Park

United States
Francis Scott Key Memorial, San Francisco, CA
SFSU Ying Yang, San Francisco, CA
Dolores Park, San Francisco, CA
Machado Park, Santa Clara, CA
Alexander Hamilton, Central Park, New York

From the limited research that we have done, we have seen that Niantic is really strategically timing all of these EX-Raids so that they could have the maximum number of participants to provide them with feedback and help them perform fine tuning to their system. One of our leads tells us that Niantic is using specific times for these special raids.

For the USA these times are 18:00 to 19:00, and in Japan 12:00 to 13:00. These seemingly are the hours when gyms are pretty much busy with maximum activity.

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