When the Pokémon HOME GTS launched in February 2020, naturally I asked myself: what would be the most inane, pointless collection of a single Pokémon that one could build by trading on the GTS, and the GTS alone? Options aplenty. VC Dunsparce? Not bad. Certainly dull. The four-legged God, Bidoof? Sure, but it’s not in Sword & Shield. Hmm. How about Magikarp? It’s in all the latest games, can do nothing but Splash, and even its official Pokédex entry dismisses it as a “pathetic excuse for a Pokémon” that’s “virtually useless”. Perfect!
Here’s the thing about doing a GTS quest: dream up all the goof factor you want, but unless you want to be refreshing the GTS overview 30x/minute like you’re trying to snipe a Zacian, for attainability you’re going to be constrained in your Pokémon selection to other people’s undesirables that are left on the exchange to rot. In that regard, amassing lots of ordinary Magikarp, I imagine, would be easy. It’s a PoGo staple. The Magikarp Salesman offloads them at ¥500 a pop. They’re in Sw/Sh raids. Old Rods will hook them. Everyone has loads sitting around. But how about slightly more special Magikarp? Those of the golden variety. Shiny ones.
A long time ago, in a Poké-universe far, far away… Shiny odds were a firm, immutable 1/8192. Finding an off-coloured Pokémon was an extraordinarily rare and exceedingly memorable occasion. Few casual players ever acquired more than one. Today, shiny odds cap out at an 8x improved 1/512, but even then, surely shinies are still held sufficiently dearly that nobody would ditch legitimate specimens on the GTS, right? Well, let’s find out.
Inspired by the adage that a picture may express more than a thousand words, I set out to achieve the inverse – to have a 1000 pictures frame a singular thought: Karptastic.
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Kurrent Karp Kollection Kount: 420 (March 8, 2020)
Is your OT Magikarp in the collection? Which one is your favourite? Let me know!
Magikarp 1-60
Magikarp 61-120
Magikarp 121-180
Magikarp 181-240
Magikarp 241-300
Magikarp 301-360
Magikarp 361-420
More coming soon!
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I bet you’d like to know how long it took to acquire all these Golden Magikarp. The answer may surprise you. I traded for the first one February 24, the 100th late on the 25th, and the 250th on February 28. After this initial flurry of activity, I slowed down to stave off GTS fatigue even as the supply of Magikarp remained quite healthy. Or, depending on your perspective, unhealthy. Which I suppose betrays my ambivalence towards the unequivocal success of this crazy undertaking.
I was frankly amazed to hoover up hundreds of yellow Magikarp through the most mundane KarpalTunnel screentap effort. Technology is incredible! But… Why are there so many? And why are players only asking for Cacnea, or a Chimecho, or a Litten, or a Froakie, or a Swinub in return for their shiny Karp? These don’t look like hacks, or clones, so what gives?
The short answer, I suppose, is that it’s Magikarp we’re talking about. That’s not exactly a representative choice of Pokémon! No other Pokémon is so unwanted and so abundant at the same time.
The longer answer is that not only do people not want Magikarp in whatever shape, hue or form, they exist in absurd quantities. Magikarp featured in four-day special Max Raids over the 2019/20 New Year, blessed with a whopping 8% shiny chance. That was early January. At present, it’s early March. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of shiny Magikarp came into existence. And it shows in the collection – some 60-70% are the Lv.60, Max Raid-kind. Oversaturation has made these less valuable than a Gen IV/V starter. Limited-time events like these cast long shadows and the GTS is, and will continue to be, awash with shiny Karp.
Not that I mind too much. Red Gyarados has been a “free” shiny since time immemorial. It does, however, beg the broader question whether we truly need Niantic-style bonus-odds shiny Raids in a game that’s already optimised to make hunting off-coloured Pokémon more accessible and inoffensive than ever. Perhaps we could do a fuller assessment of the “state of the shiny” by trying to repeat this stunt with some other Pokémon available in Sword & Shield, so… Stay tuned for that!