Screenshot: Nintendo

Two decades ago, Ash, Pikachu, and friends sent Mewtwo packing. Now, the weirdo psychic feline is back for revenge—not on late-’90s moviegoers but on 21st-century Pokémon players. This weekend, in celebration of Pokémon Day, Sword and Shield players have the chance to partake in a doozy of a Max Raid Battle against Dynamax Mewtwo.



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Many players on social media have described it as one of the toughest bouts in the game. Mewtwo shows up at level 100 and has a bolstered health bar. Even if you put your best fighter forward, you’ll likely need to team up with other players to win, and even then, Mewtwo has been straight-up wiping the floor with even the best teams of four.



If you actually manage to beat him, you’ll be rewarded with a treasure trove of rare items. Players online have reportedly earned everything from Rare Candies (which level up your Pokémon) to Ability Capsules (a rare item that changes a single Pokémon’s ability) to Big Nuggets (chunks of gold that sell in-game for an amount that would cover my annual rent). One thing you won’t get? A Mewtwo of your own.



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That’s right: Unlike other Max Raid battles, you can’t catch this one. What gives, The Pokémon Company?




What’s more, getting into a Mewtwo Max Raid in the first place isn’t exactly guaranteed. One Twitter user claimed it took 45 minutes to get into a battle. This checks out with my own experience. Earlier today, I tried for about an hour to join a battle, but was met with various error codes, including multiple instances each of 2617-0502 (“One or more other consoles are not responding”), 2-ALZBA-0031 (“You can’t participate because the entry session for participation has been closed”), 2-ALZBA-0033 (“You can’t participate because the maximum number of participants has been reached”), 2-ALZBA-0034 (“No communication partner was found”), 2618-0501 (“Unable to connect to the other consoles”), and 0420-6969 (“lol you suck”). (Editor’s note: One of these error codes is not real. We’ll let you guess which one.) I had no luck finding a Mewtwo locally, either.



Before you try finding a battle, though, you should ask yourself: What’s the point? It’s tough to set up a battle, and the potential rewards, while rare, aren’t mind-blowing. Rare Candies are nice, but they offer just one level-up. Ability Capsules are cool, too, but you can just get them at the Battle Tower. And if you’re at a high enough level to take on Dynamax Mewtwo, you almost certainly have enough money that even a massive chunk of gold won’t make a difference.


There’s only one truly rare prize you can get from beating Dynamax Mewtwo, and it’s a functionally useless item known as Bragging Rights. Hey, if that’s enough of a reason, you have until 6:59 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 1, to take down Dynamax Mewtwo and join the pantheon of Ash and company.

Dynamax Squirtle Screenshot: Nintendo


In addition to Max Raid Battles against Mewtwo—who, again, you cannot catch—you’ll be able to fight Max Raid Battles against the original three starters and their second-stage evolutions. And yes, you can catch these ones. (I came across an Ivysaur, whom I summarily caught...and nicknamed “Mewtwo.” Small victories!) You can also run into a Dynamax Toxtricity, an electric/poison Pokémon with a near godlike Special Attack stat.



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