Apex Shadow Lugia and Apex Shadow Ho-Oh swoop into Pokémon Go, roaring into the Johto Tour

After Team Rocket stole what was waiting for Professor Willow and his team behind the mysterious closed door in Pokémon Go, the villainous team now has possession of an Apex Shadow Lugia and Apex Shadow Ho-Oh. These incredible Pokémon will be appearing during the Pokémon Go Tour: Johto event on February 26 from 9 AM to 9 PM in your local time zone.

Both Apex Shadow Lugia and Apex Shadow Ho-Oh will be available to all ticket holders, so long as they work through the Masterwork Research line. Whether you’ve selected the Gold or Silver ticket, you can catch both of these incredible Pokémon when they appear for the event. Apex Shadow Lugia will learn Aeroblast+, and Apex Shadow Ho-Oh will be able to learn Sacred Fire+. However, if you purify these Pokémon, they will learn even stronger attacks of these charged moves, Aeroblast++ and Sacred Fire++, respectively.

While we don’t know if the Apex Pokémon themselves will have stat changes, the stronger attacks will likely turn these two Pokémon into Master League must-haves for players. We’ll need to wait and see if there are any stat changes to these two, as Shadow Ho-Oh is seen as a stronger combatant than the purified version. If purified Apex Ho-Oh has a stronger Sacred Fire move than the Shadow version, we’ll need to see which of the two options are a better fit for players.

It does look like that Apex Shadow Lugia will not have a recolor and reflect the fan-favorite version of the original Shadow Lugia, Gale of Darkness, originally seen in Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness.

In addition to Apex Shadow Lugia and Apex Shadow Ho-Oh appearing for the event, ticket holders can look forward to a Shiny Gyarados encounter, Ho-Oh Wing and Lugia Mask for your avatar, five rotating habitats, special trades, appearances by Entei, Suicune, Raikou, and the standard Ho-Oh and Lugia, and much more.

These Apex Pokémon add another layer of potential Pokémon for Niantic to explore. Shadow legendary Pokémon have been highly sought-after. The additions of these two Apex Pokémon make the Pokémon Go Tour: Johto even more exciting and worthwhile for players to attend on February 26.