Pokemon Go July Community Day – Shiny Gastly, exclusive move and more

Paul Cot

The Pokemon Go July 2020 Community Day is here and it will be headlined by the ghost-type Gastly.

The Community Day starts on Sunday, July 19 at 11am local time. As has been the case since the global health crisis, it will last for a total of six hours, until 5pm local time.

Gastly will headline the July Community Day as it came second, behind Weedle, in a poll back back in May. It may have finished behind the popular bug-type but it beat fellow Kantonian Pokemon Sandshrew and Squirtle.

Egg hatch discount is back

First let’s take a look at the bonuses the July Community Day has to offer. As usual there will be three-hour Incense duration.

The most exciting bonus though, is that eggs will take just a quarter of the time to hatch. Judging by feedback in the Pokemon Go community trainers prefer this bonus ahead of bonus catch Stardust and XP.

Gengar Pokemon Go
Gengar is a powerful attackers but its defensive stats leave a lot to be desired…

Gengar stats

Gastly may be the headliner but trainers will be looking toward its final evolution, Gengar. The iconic ghost-type has the following stats:

  • Attack 261 – 39 of 827
  • Defence 149 – 359 of 827
  • Stamina 155 – 459 of 827

As we can see Gengar has excellent attack but its defense is very limited which unfortunately makes it not suited to GO Battle League. It is, however, one of the most effective ghost options in Raid Battles.

Exclusive move

Gengar’s exclusive move for its Pokemon Go Community Day appearance is Shadow Punch. This fast charging Charge Move only requires 35 energy but only deals 40 damage.

In terms of Raids this won’t be particularly attractive to trainers as its DPE just isn’t good enough, especially when you consider the likes of Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball and Sludge Wave which are already available.

Shadow Punch may be tempt some trainers to try it out in PvP as it can waste some of your opponent’s Protect Shields. Don’t expect it to become part of the meta anytime soon, though.

Shiny Gastly

Another Community Day, another Shiny release. Shiny Gastly will be appearing far more frequently during the six-hour window.

This by no means it will be spawning regularly, but if you’re intending to catch a lot of Gastly you’ll inevitably run into some.

It looks like Niantic will continue the voting system for future Community Days – more on that soon.