Lured Up Podcast 382: We Love This Game

Live Streamed on - 2/9/26

Publish Date - 2/13/26

Love is in the air during the Valentine’s Day Event! We start by recapping the last week of gameplay and how Oricorio Catch Mastery overlapped with the Carnival of Flamigo. This type of double event format gave Trainers flexibility over the day to play when they could, without creating FOMO. Let’s hope that this is something they do again in the coming seasons.

Valentine’s Day weekend brings us Raids and Gigantamax Battles as we take on Therian Enamorus and GMAX Meowth. Taking a look at GO Hub and Pokebattler, we put together some parties to take them on, with some usual suspects and some unique Pokémon making appearances. Between event tickets and consumables, this will likely be an expensive weekend for the hardcore.

We had an update that no one asked for, but many are happy is here, with GO Snapshot getting a significant update. Partnering with Pokémon’s 30th Anniversary campaign, “What’s Your Favorite” looks to create some social buzz by having Trainers share pictures of themselves with their favorite Pokémon. The interface is easy to navigate and the features are pretty cool so we recommend giving it a try!

Niantic will be hosting Community Celebrations across the globe including in Washington D.C.! Ken will be attending so if you plan on being there, send us a message! He will be giving out codes and stickers throughout the event!

Our final discussion is a recap of some critically important settings and features that you may not even know about! Did you know that there are two different ways that the game measures walking distance? Do you know if you are running at 30Hz or 120Hz refresh rate? We hope you can find something to take away from our discussion and start using today!

Carnival of Flamigo

Oricorio Catch Mastery

Valentine’s Day 2026

Therian Enamurus Raid Day

Therian Enamorus Battle Party GO Hub 

Therian Enamorus Battle Party Pokebattler

GMAX Meowth Max Battle Day

GMAX Meowth Battle Party GO Hub

GMAX Meowth Battle Party Pokebattler

What’s Your Favorite

Community Celebrations

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Grab some merch: https://crowdmade.com/collections/professornetwork 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2026 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

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Lured Up Podcast 381: Three Flamigos

Live Streamed on - 2/3/2026

Publish Date - 2/6/2026

Last weekend brought us a double header with Vulpix Community Day and DMAX Ho-Oh Max Battle Weekend. This weekend brings Carnival of Flamigo and Oricorio Catch Mastery. Double dipping may be the best way to get the most out of the game. With next season’s Saturdays being blocked out, we think it safe to assume there will be some weekends with overlapping events.

We have two annual events making their return this month with Valentine’s Day and Lunar New Year. Adam thinks that with Enamorous and Luvdisc not being in the announcement, that there will be more info coming. Lunar New Year will be your next chance for Shiny Gimmighoul, which will likely lead the charge of the event.

It’s been a while since we last visited Reddit to find some interesting Pokémon GO posts. We picked some of our favorites and enjoy the sweet vibe of Reddit and how it is so different from X. We look back to the old avatar aesthetic, the Meowth Balloon, and hear two great stories from the community.

Finally we wrap up with a discussion on game-work-life balance and how we are currently approaching the topic. We share what we are doing right and wrong in the daily battle to find balance. We also want to hear from you! What are you succeeding or failing at when it comes to balance in your life?

Into The Depths

Community Day: Vulpix & Alolan Vulpix

Ho-Oh Max Battle Weekend

Carnival of Flamigo

Oricorio Catch Mastery

Valentine’s Day 2026

Lunar New Year

Old Avatars

6 Year Gym Defender

Meowth Balloon

50 POI in 25 days

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Grab some merch: https://crowdmade.com/collections/professornetwork 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

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Lured Up Podcast 380: Daily Routine

Live Streamed on - 1/28/26

Publish Date - 1/30/26

This week was packed with gameplay as we saw Precious Pals get Taken Over, Shadow Raikou Raid Day and Into The Depths! These events delivered a diverse menu of gameplay styles, with Raiding, Shiny Hunting, Routes and more. This weekend brings us Dynamax Ho-Oh, which may be hit or miss with Communities and might require more coordination than usual to get Trainers together. You will however, have a relaxed pace with many hours of the day available to track down Ho-Oh.

Next week looks even stronger with Carnival of Flamigo kicking off on Tuesday and stretching out over Oricorio Catch Mastery Day. This will make grinding next Saturday a fantastic time to play so block out your time now! The Road to Kalos event is just ludicrous with how much it has going on. Plenty of costumes and backgrounds will make this either a collector’s dream or worst nightmare. 

Wayfarer had some big updates this week with the release of their official map! Wayfinders will no longer have to use third party tools or work with outdated maps. With the forums blowing up over it, I think Wayfarer may have a winner on their hands with the Community. We also saw the expansion of Niantic’s Street Corner experiment to all 50 US states and the forums are melting down about it. We hope this will make underdeveloped/populated gameboards receive some POI that don’t have to follow criteria that would normally make them ineligible.

Finally, we wrap up with a conversation about daily gameplay routines, and how they can bring some consistency and efficiency to your play. We discuss our morning, afternoon, and evening routines and how it impacts what we do. From inventory maintenance to gifting strategies, developing loops for your tasks can help you stay focused and on task. That is until you accidentally forget to do it, making the entire day’s progress a bust. Let us know what you do in this game, day in - day out!

Precious Pals: Taken Over

Shadow Raikou Raid Day

Into The Depths

Ho-Oh Max Battle Weekend

Carnival of Flamigo

Oricorio Catch Mastery

Road To Kalos

GO Hub: Road To Kalos

February GO Pass

Wayfarer Map

Street Corner PokéStops

GO Hub: Street Corner PokéStops

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Grab some merch: https://crowdmade.com/collections/professornetwork 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

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Lured Up Podcast 379 - Solo Leveling

Live Streamed on - 1/21/2026

Publish Date - 1/23/2026

New week, new show! January is chugging a long after an active week of gameplay. High Zaptitude, Grookey Community Day, and the start of Precious Pals has kept us busy over the last few days. With the Taken Over portion of Precious Pals landing this weekend, we will see a ton of activity in-game as it overlaps with Shadow Raikou Raid Day. This week gave us a little bit of everything, and we are loving it.

Into the Depths is coming up with the release of Flimmet, however its Evolution, Glimmora is nowhere to be found. Will we see more Megas from Legaends Z-A being announced? With the announcement of Mega Victreebel and Mega Malimar being added to GO Tour: Kalos, it appears so. Let’s hope the Mega meta continues to develop in a positive way, while allowing the game to stretch its legs and release things over time.

Our Save the Dates for next season are here, and what we are already seeing is event EVERY Saturday. We speculate on what this sudden structuring of events could mean, and how it blocks gameplay from those that work on Saturdays. With event announcements rolling out leading to and after the Seasonal announcement, we could see the most packed event calendar yet.

We dig into the listener mailbag with a voicemail, text and email. From new listeners to great ideas to feel good stories, the mailbag delivered big this week. After the mail, we discuss how different group sizes and gameboard environments have a dramatic impact on gameplay. We touch on Solo grinding, car grinding, and small and large scale Campfire events. There is no wrong way to play this game, and we want to hear from you. Hit us up and let us know your favorite ways to play the game. We also ask, is there any difference from how you WISH you can play the game vs how you ACTUALLY play the game? Let us know!

High Zaptitude

Community Day: Grookey

Precious Pals

Precious Pals Taken Over

Into The Depths

Shadow Raikou Raid Day

Dynamax Ho-Oh Max Battle Weekend

Mega Victreebel and Mega Malamar

Community Day: Vulpix & Alolan Vulpix

Season 22 Save The Dates

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Grab some merch: https://crowdmade.com/collections/professornetwork 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lured Up Podcast 378

Live Streamed on - 1/12/2026

Publish Date - 1/15/2026

This week didn’t finish too strong with some Trainers in the Community. While Pinch Perfect and its rotating Timed Research was a blast, Kyurem Fusion Raid Day left a bad taste in some Trainers’ mouths. The inclusion of Reshiram and Zekrom in the Raid rotation hurt Trainers with less developed gameboards, as some reports saying that all the Raids in some rotations were not White or Black Kyurem, making the event fall flat until the opportunity arises to try it again during the next rotation. Adam brought up a great idea of putting Fusion Energy in Field Research for defeating Reshiram or Zekrom.

This week brings High Zaptitude and a double release. Wattrel and Shiny Tadbulb make their debut during the event, giving two different Pokémon to chase that are available in different ways. You’ll have to work to unlock Wattrel, as it is a Level 2 Reward of a Global Challenge, which confused some Trainers that didn’t read the fine print. In all, this is a solid double header and a fun Electric event.

Precious Pals and Precious Pals Taken Over will keep us busy in the week ahead, with Giovanni bringing Shadow Incarnate Forme Thundurus. We also have boosted Shinies for catching Goldeen, and hatching Espurr or Fidough. Make sure you remember to TM away Frustration before the event ends!

Weekly Challenges added matchmaking and a bigger invite list this week. With the leveling grind being so popular, Weekly Challenges are a great way to fast track to Forever Friends. The Challenges themselves however, pose little to no actual challenge for moderate to hardcore Trainers. We spitball some ideas of how this mechanic can be developed to provide a tougher challenge while targeting Trainers of different skill and dedication levels.

Finally we drop our top 5 gameplay loop lists and talk it through. From the Friendship Grind to Adam’s Max Battle obsession, we dig into what keeps us engaged with the game and coming back for more.

Pinch Perfect

Kyurem Fusion Raid Day

High Zaptitude

Grookey Community Day

Precious Pals

Weekly Challenges

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Grab some merch: https://crowdmade.com/collections/professornetwork 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lured Up Podcast 377

Live Streamed on - 1/6/26

Publish Date - 1/9/26

We are back from our holiday break and ready to get back on the grind! We hope everyone had a great end to 2025 and a positive outlook on 2026. From everyone at the Pokémon Professor Network, we hope you have the Happiest of New Years.

Trainers woke up this week to a major spawn point shuffle, with reports of house spawns updating from 10 to as few as 2. Keep in mind you will hear more about the bad stuff than the good, but there have also been reports of spawns increasing in other areas. Our best hunch is this could either have been influenced by an update to the game’s feed from Open Street Map or it is Niantic slash Scopely trying to influence where we play the game. We will have to pay attention to the community to find out if increases are to be found in parks and rural areas.Unfortunately, Niantic Support has been spreading some seemingly incorrect reasoning for the updates, which will only add to confusion and upset Trainers.

This week brings a new Dex entry with Klauf and a new Shiny with Dhelmise during the Pinch Perfect event. Field Research should keep you busy looking for the Win a Raid task which could bring you either of the two of the event’s featured Pokémon. This weekend is going to be great with Kyurem Fusion Raid Day. Thanks to GO Hub, we will run through the best counters for each of the four Raids from the event, with four separate Battle Parties, as well as a single party you can use for all of the Raids during the event.

The January GO Pass is here with the major reward being a Lucky Trinket. End Game Trainers may think it has a little less value, as the post 70 Lucky Friend grind is bringing Trainers multiple Lucky Friends a week. The total rewards as a whole still give the GO Pass great value, with the free version still providing some fun and consistent and daily gameplay.

We wrap up with a chat about some of our plans for the new year, including some IRL short form video and some travel for events. We can’t wait to roll things out soon!

Spawn Point Shuffle

New Year’s Event 2026

Piplup Community Day

Pinch Perfect

Kyurem Fusion Raid Day

Black Kyurem GO Hub

White Kyurem GO Hub

Reshiram GO Hub

Zekrom GO Hub

January GO Pass

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lured Up Podcast 376: A Ticket For Every Event

Live Streamed on - 12/16/25

Publish Date - 12/19/25

The game is overrun with costume Pokémon which has to mean that the Holiday Season is upon us! Are you Team Sudowoodo or Team Charjabug? One thing is for sure, we know Adam will be out catching every Delibird he can find! With two weeks of Holiday events ahead of us, we start things off with a recap of the last week of gameplay including Well Armed, GMAX Snorlax, and Citi Safari events. With the Well Armed’s Global Challenges powering extra Candy XL for GMAX Snorlax, Trainers had good reason to get out there and grind over the last week.

The Holiday events kicked off this week and brought a GO Pass along with it, but the rewards may not be the strongest this time around. Will a Snom Beanie be enough to sell the GO Pass? We don’t think so but Trainers may be in it more for the process at this point. Part 2 of the Holiday Event picks up on Christmas Eve and brings back some past costume Pokémon as well as the debut of the Rolycoly line. The Winter Weekend mini-event opens the GO Pass progression up and adds a Timed Research as well.

While Niantic hasn’t shared the January Content Update yet, they are giving us plenty of event blogs to get us excited. Of course we will have a New Year’s event which will bring back some popular costume Pokémon and some fancy avatar boots to boot. Grookey has been announced as the first Community Day Pokémon of the new year, while Piplup will show up during Community Day Classic. If that wasn’t enough of a January preview for you, Kyurem Fusion Raid Day is also on the docket, which will will surely be a strong IRL and remote event.

We wrap things up with a discussion about the state of the game, and how even with some performance issues like crashes and dropped frames, the game overall is in a really good state. Trainers have tons of options of how to spend their game time, with multiple mechanics taking Trainers down different types of experiences. One thing we have noticed, is that with increased item and Pokémon storage available, inventory maintenance has become a long and monotonous task that takes up a lot of our valuable screen time.

Well Armed

GMAX Snorlax

City Safari Miami

Celestial Research Day

Winter Holiday Part 1

Winter Holiday Part 2

New Year’s 2026

Piplup Community Day Classic

Kyurem Fusion Raid Day

Grookey Community Day 

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lured Up Podcast 375

Live Streamed on - 12/9/2025

Publish Date - 12/12/2025

Temperatures are dropping for Ken and Adam in the Northeast, but that isn’t stopping the game from keeping things hot! In the last week we journeyed to Paldea, recapped the year’s Community Day lineup, as we continue to grind through the GO Pass and the leveling update. The announcement of Forever Friends has rekindled old friendships and has remotivated Trainers to get back on the gifting grind. 

This week also brings us the Well Armed event with the release of Clobbopus along with boosted Shiny rates for DMAX Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan. Well Armed’s Global Challenges will be the perfect complement for GMAX Snorlax this weekend, as rewards include increased Candy XL from Max Battles. Niantic has been doing a great job with events supporting each other, and allowing for some great stacking of bonuses.

Forever Friends brings Remote Trading, which is a feature that Trainers never thought they would see. With a slick interface and a fair trading process, this will keep Best Friends engaged and interacting. Having a Prestige based leveling system will make Forever Friends earn their namesake, and worth keeping on your list. The Friends List will also be increasing from 450 to 650, rolled out in waves of 50. While there hasn’t been any announcement about increased gifting ability, the additional friends are still a huge win.

December still has a lot of fight left in it with the Winter Holiday events and Celestial Research Day coming soon. We also can’t forget about the City Safari events happening this weekend as well. It’s pretty wild to think how aggressive the pacing of the game is and how it keeps packing out the calendar. We also have confirmation on GO Fest locations, with the confirmation of Chicago and the announcement of Tokyo and Copenhagen. 

We wrap things up with a conversation about remote play, and how Niantic has done a great job in rolling out remote features, without it having a big impact on IRL play. Smaller communities will still feel a sting if they lose 10-20% of their attendees, but the remote accessibility can at least make up for the gameplay elements, allowing the smaller groups to take down the tougher bosses. We wonder if there is anything left to add to the remote lineup, or if we have seen everything there is to be done already released!

Journey to Paldea

December Community Day

December Content Update

December GO Pass

Well Armed

Forever Friends

GMAX Snorlax

Winter Holiday Part 1

Celestial Research Day

GO Fest 2026

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

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Lured Up Podcast 374

Live Streamed on - 12/2/2025

Publish Date - 12/5/2025

It’s officially Delibird season and Adam already has a laser focus on the delivery Pokémon. He will have to wait a little longer, but there is plenty to do in the meantime, with December looking to be very strong. We kick things off with a recap of the last week of gameplay, which kept many Trainers very busy. Final Justice closed out Tales of Transformation, with DMAX Lugia Max Battle Day and Pikipek Community Day caring us right to the launch of Precious Paths.

With Precious Paths kicking off, we immediately see notice the shift in wild encounters as we are thrust right into the Journey to Paldea event. It brings the Nacli line to our Pokedex, and brings some pretty solid Three-Star Raids. Shadow Raids will be a focus for many this month, as Shadow Heatran slides in, whose typing and heavy DPS will make it very usable in PVE. Thanks to GO Hub and Pokébattler, we put together a little Raid guide and Battle Party, whoop-whoop.

We take a peek at the December Content Update and plot everything out on our Google Calendar. With no new Tier-Five or Mega Raid Bosses, we will let the events lead the charge. This upcoming weekend’s Community Day round-up will get things going as we wait for the two part Holiday event to come in a few weeks. A new month also means a new GO Pass, and the Timed Incubator returns, which will help out a lot of Trainers that need to hatch eggs to level up.

The Well Armed event and GO Tour details round out or event coverage and get us to our episode discussion. We take a look at what the ideal event would feel like. What types of gameplay would you like to see in an event, and what would keep you engaged? Do those desires change when playing in different geographies or with different size groups? Get in touch with us and keep the conversation going? What would make up your perfect Pokémon GO event?

Final Justice

Dynamax Lugia

Pikipek Community Day

Precious Paths

Journey to Paldea

Shadow Heatran GO Hub

Shadow Heatran Pokebattler

December Content Update

December GO Pass

Well Armed

GO Tour

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

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Lured Up Podcast 373: Daily Adventure PokéStop

Live Streamed on - 11/25/25

Publish Date - 11/28/25

As November comes to a close, the Tales of Transformation are not going quietly. With High Voltage keeping Trainers on the hunt for Shiny Morpeko, Dynamax Eevee brought Adam out for some serious grinding. There is something about DMAX Eevee that pushed a lot of Trainers to do a fair amount of them. We wonder how this will impact the release of GMAX Eevee, whenever that decides to debut.

Final Justice brings Resolute Form Keldeo as well as a $7.99 Masterwork Research. Without a story pushing the Research along, this really feels like a direct transaction for Shiny Keldeo. Is a little story too much to ask, or does the community at large simply not care about it at all? Longer tasks are fun to grind through, but they can feel someone one-note when all we are do is checking boxes and going through the motions.

The weekend brings us DMAX Lugia, which is coming to little fanfare. WIth regular Lugia and Shadow Lugia making appearances recently, the DMAX version seems a bit poorly timed. What we can hope for, is that DMAX Lugia is common during Pikipek Community Day, so groups will have an easier time taking it down, and won’t have to make both events into a full weekend affair. 

Precious Paths is our next season, and the announcement trailer has us thinking. It shows Trainers adventuring along different paths, that feature PokéStops in locations that don’t appear to follow any inclusion rules. We don our special tin foil hats and inappropriately speculate on what this could possible be. While it is likely nothing, what if it was a type of deployable and temporary PokéStop. Let’s jump down the rabbit hole.

High Voltage

Dynamax Eevee

Final Justice

Pony Tales Masterwork Research

Dynamax Lugia

Pikipek Community Day

Precious Paths

GO Battle League: Precious Paths

Journey to Paldea

Stay up to date by adding our Google Calendar to your account!

[email protected]    

Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 

Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork 

Hosts

Ken Pescatore

Adam Tuttle

Writer and Producer

Ken Pescatore

Executive Producer 

Xander

Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons

▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾

http://instagram.com/GameChops

http://twitter.com/GameChops

http://soundcloud.com/GameChops

http://facebook.com/GameChops

http://youtube.com/GameChops

http://www.gamechops.com

Intro Music

Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) 

Tetracase

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/

https://soundcloud.com/tetracase 

https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0

Break Music

National Park

Mikel & GameChops

GameChops - Poké & Chill

http://smarturl.it/pokechill

https://twitter.com/mikel_beats

Outro Music

Vast Poni Canyon

CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix)

GameChops - Ultraball

http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ 

http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats

https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity

Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo.

#pokemon #pokemongo #podcast

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices