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Pokèmon GO: What are Shadow Pokèmon and How to Purify Them

This article is over 5 years old and may contain outdated information

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Team Rocket is finally here. After years of playing Pokèmon GO, the nefarious foes of good trainers everywhere have invaded and are taking over random Pokè Stops around the world. To defeat them you’ll have to fight their corrupted Shadow Pokèmon, and you may end up rescuing some of your own. But once you have them, you may not be sure what to do. Here’s a quick rundown of what are shadow Pokèmon and how to purify them in Pokèmon GO.

What are Shadow Pokèmon

These corrupted creatures are used by Team Rocket to do their dastardly deeds. They’ve taken normal characters and turned them evil, and it’s up to you to rescue and purify them. To rescue them just look for the black, Team Rocket themed Pokè Stops scattered around the world. They’ll appear randomly and only for a limited time, so if you see one head straight to it and do battle. Just spin the Stop to start the conflict, which shouldn’t be too difficult if you’ve been building a solid team of characters to use. Watch the type of your foes and determine who is best to bring into battle, then defeat them to rescue one of their Shadow Pokèmon. To do this just catch them as normal, but they’ll still be corrupted by the Shadow influence.

How to Purify Shadow Pokèmon

Once you’ve caught the Shadow Pokèmon it’s actually pretty easy to purify them. All it will cost is a set amount of candy and Stardust, so select the character to check and decide if it’s worth it. Once purified the character will have their IVs boosted by 2 a piece, possibly making for a very powerful creature to power up and use in the game. Along with this, Purified Pokèmon cost less to power up, so if you like the species you may want to gather a few of them. One thing to keep in mind is you can still trade these as of now (UPDATE: trading of Shadow Pokèmon has since been disabled). If you have a Lucky Friend you may want to swap Shadow Pokèmon between yourselves creating a very powerful Purified, Lucky Pokèmon.

And that’s all there is to know about what are shadow Pokèmon and how to purify them in Pokèmon GO.


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