A Pokémon GO player has had one of the luckiest Shiny streaks recorded to date, collecting five of the rare Pokémon variants in under 30 minutes. Ever since Shiny Pokémon made their debut in 1998’s Pokémon Gold and Silver, fans have spent hours trying to hunt down the Shiny variants of their favorite Pokémon across the series.
Although Niantic's Pokémon GO - a mobile game that uses augmented reality and live maps to enable players to catch Pokémon whilst out in the real world - launched in July 2016 without the rare Shiny variants, they were added the following year. This was done with a surprise reveal of Shiny Magikarp and its evolution, the red Shiny Gyarados, with Shinies of other Pokémon GO catches added alongside further updates that saw new generations of Pokémon coming to the Niantic hit.
Due to the rarity of Shinies in Pokémon games, Redditor Harjot1807 (via Dexerto) stunned the community when sharing a screenshot on the Pokémon GO subreddit showing five Shiny Pokémon they caught between 4:09 PM and 4:33 PM. The Shinies caught were Lillipup, Ledyba, Zubat, and two Ferroseeds, and there were no non-Shiny Pokémon in between. Fellow Pokémon fans reacted to Harjot1807's lucky streak in awe, with KingOfVegetables telling them to “Buy a lottery ticket ASAP”. Although Pokémon GO does have Community Days that help fans stand a higher chance of catching certain Pokémon and Shinies, Harjot1807's streak seemed to fall outside of one of these events, as March's Community Day fell on the 13, over two weeks before, making their feat even more impressive.
Some comments doubted the legitimacy of whether or not such a high level of luck was real, suggesting that there was a level of Spoofing involved, which is a frowned upon act within the community where players can set their Pokémon GO app to alter their device's GPS data to make the game's servers think they're in a different location. This can allow users to unlock certain types of Pokémon or Shinies. Despite this, the majority of the thread was wholesome, with Pokémon fans inspired by Harjot1807's Shiny streak and wishing each other luck in finding as many Shinies as them.
If it was accomplished entirely through normal gameplay, there's no denying that Harjot1807 is an extremely lucky Pokémon GO player. Catching multiple Shiny pocket monsters in a row is a rare feat, not just because of the lowered spawn rate of the characters, but also because of how easily they can evade Poké Balls. If the player's lucky streak continues, it may certainly be worth them listening to their fellow Redditor's suggestion of purchasing a lottery ticket.
Source: Harjot1807/Reddit, KingOfVegetables/Reddit (via Dexerto)