Pokemon Go Makes Massive Changes to Egg Pools

Pokemon Go has tinkered with its egg pools once again, and some fans aren’t going to be happy with the result. The Silph Road, a Reddit community dedicated to researching Pokemon Go, posted the findings of their latest research project this weekend, which showed that Pokemon Go had recently dropped several Pokemon from its egg pools.

For those unfamiliar with Pokemon Go lingo, egg pools determine what Pokemon hatch from certain eggs. Pokemon Go has periodically tinkered with the egg pools, pulling out certain common Pokemon and adding rarer Pokemon from time to time.

Pokemon Go made the changes last month, shuffling Pokemon around shortly before its Anniversary Event. At the time, it was unclear whether the changes were temporary or permanent, but now it appears that they’re here to stay.

Keep scrolling down to find out what changes have been made to Pokemon Go‘s egg pools:

Dropped from Egg Pools

The biggest change is that Pokemon Go dropped several fan-favorite Pokemon from its egg pools. Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle were all removed from the egg pool last month, which means that players can only obtain these Pokemon by catching them in the wild. It seems that Pokemon Go removed the Gen 1 starter Pokemon in favor of the Gen 2 starters….but we’ll cover that more in a bit. 

Several other common Pokemon were pulled out the egg pools, including Ekans, Staryu, Goldeen, Vulpix, Magnemite, and Yanma. With the possible exception of Yanma and Vulpix, none of these Pokemon were particularly rare, so most players won’t miss hatching them from eggs.

Added to Egg Pools

As we reported in July, 13 Pokemon species were added at the beginning of July’s Anniversary Event. All of the Pokemon added are “Gen 2” Pokemon, and several were uncommon or rare Pokemon that aren’t easily obtainable in the wild.

The Pokemon added to the Egg Pools include Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile, which players will recognize as the “Gen 2” starter Pokemon. As we mentioned earlier, it appears that Pokemon Go‘s developers decided to switch out one set of starter Pokemon for another.

The other Pokemon added to the egg pools include Teddiursa, Houndour, Snubbull, Marill, Wooper, Hoppip, Chinchou, Swinub, Natu, and Spinarak. A few of those Pokemon, like Houndour and Snubbull, are uncommon Pokemon but the bulk of them are pretty common and were already easily obtainable in the wild. 

Other Changes

Several Pokemon were also switched from one egg pool to another. Chinchou, Mantine, Pineco, and Gilgar were all moved from the 10 KM egg pool to the 5 KM egg pool. Likely, this was because those Pokemon were all considered to be too common to be put in the 10 KM egg pool, which also has the likes of Dratini, Snorlax, Larvitar, and Lapras. 

The Silph Road also reported that several Pokemon’s rarities were switched within the egg pools. The research group discovered several months ago that some Pokemon hatched from eggs more often than others, and split the Pokemon into rarity tiers. Pichu, Mareep, Porygon, and Skarmory will now hatch from eggs more often than they used to, which should be a big help to those trying to obtain an Ampharos or a Shiny Pichu.