Mewtwo 100: The Longest Journey

4 min readOct 29, 2018

Mewtwo has been a part of my life for the past 13 months.

Last year, I was super stoked when I received my first ever exclusive raid pass — the black and white ticket to getting the best Pokemon in the game. The ex raid was scheduled on a given date and time - if you couldn’t make it, you missed it. I had to tell my sister that I’d be late to her birthday dinner.

My very first EX pass. Received as I was driving home at 12:50 AM!!

At first, ex raid invites were rare. That meant getting a perfect Mewtwo was extremely hard, unless you were one of the select few bastards who had ridiculously good luck.

Over the course of a year, I was invited to 27 ex raids. I never missed a single one. I never asked someone else to do one on my behalf. I frequently had to think ahead and schedule my life around possibly having to go to a Mewtwo raid, which sometimes meant not picking up extra work shifts on weekends and driving back from a trip early.

To be invited to these ex raids, I had to make sure to raid at least once at an eligible gym every week. An invitation was never guaranteed. So in all, I put forth a lot of effort over the year in the hopes of getting a better Mewtwo. Out of the 27, the best I saw was a 96% with non-perfect attack.

This September, Mewtwo was released as a regular, non-exclusive raid boss. This meant that you no longer had to be invited to one raid at best once a week — you could do as many Mewtwos as you had the resources to do. You get one free pass a day and then as many other passes that you could afford.

I devoted several weekends of waking up before 6 AM to embark on a long 13 plus hour day of raiding for a perfect Mewtwo. It consumed my free time. We would spend nearly the whole day in the car, busting through traffic to these real world spots where these virtual Mewtwo raids were available.

It’s not really a fun process — it’s basically like gambling. You tap on your phone a whole bunch and wait for the Mewtwo to die. You see what number his CP rolls down to — and if it isn’t the perfect 2275, it ain’t shit to the OCD players. And this game doesn’t reward you for playing more as you could be hundreds of raids deep and see a lucky casual player get what you want on the first try.

With just two days left of Mewtwo raids, we filled one car and set back out to raid. I casually decided to help my mom get another Mewtwo before it went away. Mind you, at this point, I had already done over 300 raids for myself and hadn’t seen a perfect one. So it was with a mixture of shock and horror when I saw that 2275 appear — but for my mom. My mom had seen under 30 Mewtwo total. Even when Mewtwo was limited to an exclusive invitation the whole past year, my mother had still seen a better Mewtwo than I had.

The number of Mewtwos my mom had encountered. #29 was a 2275.

With me in the car were two of my best Pogo friends — both had done over 400 Mewtwo raids each with no such luck. One said dryly, “I’m so happy for your mom.”

I caught the Mewtwo without any scares and then basically cried out, “Noooo why couldn’t it have been mine!!!”

RNGesus is a funny god.

I had just accepted the day before that I wouldn’t do any more after I ran out of coins.

And then, with just a mere dozen or so passes left and just a few raids after the shock of catching one for my mom, the magic number appeared.

My hands shook.

I missed my first throw, but on the second throw, I saw that third and final shake and I couldn’t believe it.

I had caught my perfect Mewtwo!!

It was so immensely satisfying to have finally caught what I set out to catch. You may recall that in my hunt for Zapdos I had to settle for a 98. WELL NOT THIS TIME AND IT FELT SO DAMN GOOD.

Fuck yeah Mewtwo 100. Fuck you Niantic!!!

It took me 15 months to catch a second perfect legendary.

But you know what? Fuck it.

I made it.

AND I FUCKING ATE PIZZA AFTWERWARDS.