Pokemon Go – Deino Hatch Rates Explained

The elusive Deino has been giving Pokemon Go players a headache because of how impossible it seems to hatch one from an egg. Is Deino’s rarity justifiable, or is this a mistake on Niantic’s part?

The Setting

Deino’s appearance in 7km eggs is a feature of the Dragon Week event unlocked as part of a Pokemon Go Fest 2020 reward. Two more “Ultra Unlock” weeks are soon to follow. Dragon Week took place from Friday July 31st to Friday August 7th, giving players a week to try and hatch as many eggs as possible to get a shot at any of the seven featured Dragon Type Pokemon.

Shiny Deino and Gible were the center of attention because of how rare they to find in the game let alone their shiny version, but it soon became clear that getting one of these shiny Pokemon was not going to be easy — in fact, hatching the Pokemon at all proved to be ridiculously hard. For most players, the only Deino encountered throughout the entire week were the two available through research tasks, not even eggs.

The Problem

Pokemon Go has clearly dangled Deino and Gible in front of trainers hoping to finally catch or hatch these rare Pokemon, only to reveal that they are no easier to find than normal. Deino was announced to be only available by hatching 7km eggs obtained as gifts from friends, which led many to purchase the incubators needed to hatch eggs, but Deino ended up being next to impossible to hatch! Both Gible and Deino were described as Rare in terms of the rates for successfully hatching these Pokemon from 7km eggs, yet Deino is disproportionately misrepresented in what has actually been hatched.

The Silph Road keeps track of everything to do with Pokemon Go, and their Egg Distance List displays their findings after hatching 905 eggs throughout the event. Gible comes in at a difficult 10% chance to hatch, while Deino, advertised the same as Gible, has a shocking 2% hatch rate! It is also evident that these results are after a fix to Deino’s hatch rate in the last day of the event. For the majority of the event Deino hatches were less than 1%. More people found Deino from 10km eggs or from competitive battle rewards not even related to the event.

This has led to outrage among many across Twitter and Reddit who self report finding absolutely no Deino, their friends finding none either, and the two free Deino from the research not being any good. This event has been labeled by some as a scam to get players to spend money on incubators for the false hope of hatching a disproportionately hard to find Pokemon. The ordeal has left a sour taste in the mouth and a bleak outlook on how fun the next Ultra Unlock Enigma Week event is going to be.

Explanation

It is hard to justify what has happened this week, but there is some evidence for an explanation. Examining the Egg Distance chart from The Silph Road adds some context to Deino’s rarity. Every egg category has its share of harder to hatch Pokemon. For instance, Deino has a 4% hatch rate from 10km eggs, with its shiny too! That is double its rates in the 7km eggs, but then look at some of the other 10km Pokemon.

Riolu only has a 0.7% chance to hatch from a 10km egg, and Axew has not been hatched at all! Axew has a 0% hatch rate out of 151 eggs hatched, that amount seems similar to what people were seeing at the start of Dragon Week. When Dragon Week egg rates were being developed, it is likely that the new 7km eggs would see hatch rates similar to how Pokemon Go has done their other egg rates.

Every category of eggs has their own version of Deino. Woobat has a 1.3% chance to be hatched from 2km eggs, while Buizel, Clamperl, Gothita, and Bronzor all have less than a 1% chance to be hatched from 5km eggs!

Granted, this is not a perfect comparison. The Silph Road’s hatch rates are determined by the amount of eggs they hatch and record, which is different for each type. Additionally, 2,5, and 10km eggs all have different chances to be obtained form Pokestops in the first place, and the total amount of Pokemon in each pool is larger than the 7km event pool. However, the point remains that Pokemon Go could have used their rates from other egg pools to determine what the hatch chances were going to be for Dragon Week. This explanation by no means excuses what has been done, but offers a look at how it may have been done.

What can not be explained is how Gible and Deino were shown together, implying that they would be similarly hard to find, but then making Deino much more rare. In the end, players have reason to be upset. There was a bit of false advertising, but trying to hatch Pokemon from eggs is a gamble. Its like opening up a pack of trading cards or rolling dice. What is frustrating is how Pokemon Go does not inform players what the chances are going to be beforehand. Niantic is ultimately a company trying to make money, and encouraging players to spend money on incubators to try and hatch as many eggs as possible is one way to do that. Just keep in mind for the future that what you get from eggs is random and designed to get you to spend money; some players have reported ridiculous luck at finding rare shiny Pokemon throughout the event, but many more have reported having no luck at all.

The Outrage

When Dragon Week was announced, Pokemon Go players were expecting an event that would help find the more elusive Dragon Type Pokemon, with Gible and Deino being the most sought-after. The reality was an overflow of Dratini, Seadra, Swablu, and Trapinch, with the occasional Bagon. Gible spawned occasionally in the over world, but Deino could only be hatched at unfairly low rates. To add insult to injury, Pokemon Go sent out a notification asking if players have found a Shiny Deino yet! With this notification throwing salt in the wound, memes and complaints followed.