My Quest to Hatch a Shiny Pokémon
Their rarity and unique look make them special. As each generation of games has come along, getting your hands on a Shiny Pokémon has become easier and easier. Before I set off on my mission to hatch Dreepy, I had 10 Shinies. I’d received them in trades, Special Events, and caught them in the wild. My favorites are Shiny Charizard, Metagross, and Dragonite. All special, but not quite right. I wanted a Shiny that I made, IV trained with the right nature. I wanted to hatch the egg myself, there on the long path beside the Pokémon Nursery on Route 5.

Before I began this quest, I did everything in my power to increase the odds. The base odds of hatching a Shiny are 1 in 4096. After I completed the Pokédex and received the Shiny Charm, my odds increased to 1 in 1365.33. I got a 6 IV Japanese Dreepy and slid into the Masuda Method. Odds increased once again; 1 in 512.

To increase my hatching speed, I threw a Pokémon with the ability Flame Body at the front of my party. That would half the number of steps it would take to hatch an egg. I even downloaded an app that I planned to use to track the number of eggs hatched (because that’s not an in-game feature, which drives me crazy).

I had my boosted bike and every star had aligned. Nothing could stop me now. I would hatch my first Shiny.

The Height

Dragapult is one of my favorite new Pokémon. He joins the ranks of all the other glorious pseudo-legendaries from across the Generations. I was motivated to hatch and train a Shiny version. He would be my partner as I continued Raiding and completing both of the DLC’s Pokédex.

I hatched eggs while my wife and I watched episodes of The Office. I hatched eggs while I surfed YouTube, or when I was too tired to focus on anything taxing. It was a relaxing activity, and it helped that my motivation was sky-high. It went on like this for the first 100 to 200 eggs. This was the height of the process. I was confident. I’d done everything that I knew of to increase the odds, and those odds were in my favor. 1 in 512? That’s nothing.

The Reality
['Logan Noble']
['Features', 'Gaming', 'Pokemon', 'Digital Life', 'Videogames']