Shortly before the Lunar New Year, we heard exciting news: shiny Meltan had been discovered! Always eager to gather more information on shiny species, Silph Researchers have collected data on thousands of Meltan encounters. We are nearing the end of this month-long event, which ends on March 4, and we are happy to report our findings so far!

Findings

After collecting data from 7,850 Meltan encountered through the use of Mystery Boxes, the shiny rate has been observed to be approximately

1 in 60

with a 95% confidence interval of 1 in 51.7 to 1 in 72.8

Since the start of the shiny Meltan event, there have been other overlapping events. The following table shows the shiny rate by period:

Event Period Meltan Seen Shiny Rate (95% CI) Mystery Boxes Lunar New Year Event 2,144 39 1 in 55.0

(40.4-75.0)

118 Friendship Event 1,612 28 1 in 57.6

(40.0-83.0)

88 Event Transition 1,109 12 1 in 92.4

(53.1-161.3) 60 Valentine’s Event 2,928 47 1 in 62.3

(47.0-82.7)

143 Community Day 57 2 1 in 28.5

(8.4-103.4)

4 Total 7,850 128 1 in 61.3

(51.7-72.8)

413

Event Transition

Community Day

At a glance, the Friendship to Valentine’speriod seems to have a considerably lower shiny rate than other periods, but there is also significantly less data and the confidence interval (CI) is wide. Adding or removing even one shiny would have a noticeable impact on the calculated rate. The same is true for theevent period that appears to have a significantly higher shiny rate but has even less data. Comparing the numbers with Pearson’s Chi-squared Test gives 0.46, and showing statistically significant differences in the rates would generally require a value less than 0.05. This means thatbetween all the periods.

What’s this all about?

As a quick refresher, those with access to the Let's Go, Pikachu! or Let's Go, Eevee! games on the Nintendo Switch can obtain Mystery Boxes for their Pokémon GO accounts by transferring a Pokémon to the Switch games. When opened, a Mystery Box functions similarly to Incense, but the only species that spawns as a result of using it is Meltan. After a box has been opened, there is a cooldown period before the box can be refreshed through another Pokémon transfer. During this Meltan event, the cooldown period was reduced from the usual seven days to just three.

A single Meltan is also available from the Let's GO, Meltan Special Research quest line that has been available since November 2018. Reports from travelers on the Road indicate that if you claim Meltan as a Special Research reward, there is currently a chance you will be rewarded with a shiny encounter. Our researchers have only been able to observe a small number of new Special Research reward Meltan since the event started, so we cannot draw any firm conclusions about the shiny encounter rate from this method. In our previous shiny research, however, we observed that a single Pokémon species generally seems to have a single shiny encounter rate no matter how it is obtained.

Parting words

There’s time left to open a few Mystery Boxes before this event ends, so if you have access to a Switch and are hoping for a shiny Meltan, your chances are still very reasonable! The Silph Research Group will continue to monitor shiny rates and will be sure to report any interesting discoveries. Until next time, enjoy these shiny odds, open up some Mystery Boxes, and catch those Meltan! Good luck, and see you on the road!

– Scientists Ansku and Stealerhat –