Research Which is the rarest mythical Pokemon?

[QuentinQuonce]

Introduction
Having lately bowed to pressure and started paying for a Premium Plan on Pokemon Home, I recently gathered every mythical in the series into one glorious group.

For more than a decade, mythical Pokemon were entirely exclusive to events and could not be obtained in normal gameplay. It wasn't until the release of My Pokemon Ranch that Mew became available on a repeatable, non time-restricted basis. Gradually, others started to be made available without events as well. This has obviously made many mythical Pokemon far easier to obtain than they once were. But some mythicals still remain exclusive to time- or location-locked events, and it's made me curious as to which one is the rarest, or least accessible, of the group.

So I did a little research, and decided to enumerate my findings in case anyone else was curious.

Premise
I decided to look at each mythical and count how many times they have been distributed, and for how long. Primarily, I will be counting the period of days a Pokemon has been made available in total. For equivalent distributions in different countries, they will count as the same distribution unless the dates are different: i.e. if a Pokemon was available from January 1st until March 31st 2022 in PAL regions but from January 15th to March 20th 2022 in Japan, the longer date is counted. Other factors to consider in the case of a tie or an unclear result will be the number of generations relative to the potential maximum it was made available in. For example, if a Pokemon from Gen V was only ever distributed in Gen V and VI, this would make it rarer than one which was distributed in Gen V, VI, VII, and VIII.

No Pokemon game in Gen VIII has the capacity to contain all the mythicals, so I am treating Pokemon Home as the "base" title: the premise assumes that I will be putting any mythical into Home.


Exemptions
So, before we look at periods of availability, we can eliminate any mythical which can be obtained in a main series title via standard gameplay.

Note that for the purpose of this list, "main series" here is taken to mean any title compatible with the main series, including Pokemon Go and spinoffs like Ranch and Colosseum. "Standard gameplay" here is taken to mean:

-for free
-without an event
-without external influence

...therefore, Pokemon which require save data bonuses (such as Jirachi in BDSP or Shaymin in L:A) are not considered part of standard gameplay, because players need a separate game to obtain them and they are not free. To wit, Deoxys in ORAS may be obtained all the time, by every player; Jirachi in BDSP may not. Below are all the mythical Pokemon obtainable who fit this criteria.

Mythical Pokemon obtainable ordinarily

Mew
Mew is available from My Pokemon Ranch if the player deposits 999 Pokemon. However, this does require at least one copy of Diamond or Pearl (or Platinum in Japan).

It is moot now as Ranch can no longer be legitimately downloaded, and since Mew is available from Pokemon Go via the "A Mythical Discovery" questline.

Mew is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Go and (partially) My Pokemon Ranch

Celebi
Celebi is available in the Virtual Console release of Crystal (edit: as of 2023, no longer available) and also from Pokemon Go via the "A Ripple In Time" questline.

Celebi is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Go and (with caveats) Pokemon Crystal's Virtual Console edition

Jirachi
Jirachi is available from Pokemon Go via the "A Thousand-Year Slumber" questline.

Jirachi is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Go

Deoxys
Deoxys is encountered in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire as part of the storyline.

Deoxys is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

Phione
Phione is encountered in Legends: Arceus as part of the storyline. It is, of course, also infinitely available in games where breeding is possible if the player already has a Manaphy or a Phione.

Phione is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Manaphy
Manaphy is encountered in Legends: Arceus as part of the storyline.

Manaphy is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Shaymin
At the time of writing, Shaymin has only been made available in Pokemon Go via paid events. However, following precedent it is highly likely that it will be released for free later on in the same manner as other mythicals, so I am including it here. edit: as expected, Shaymin is now available from Pokemon Go via the "Grass and Gratitude" questline.

Shaymin is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Go

Arceus
Arceus is encountered in Legends: Arceus as part of the storyline.

Arceus is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Victini
Victini is available from Pokemon Go via the "Investigate A Mysterious Energy" questline.

Victini is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Go

Keldeo
Keldeo is available in the Crown Tundra DLC.

Keldeo is currently indefinitely available in the Crown Tundra DLC

Meloetta
Meloetta is available from Pokemon Go via the "Finding Your Voice" questline.

Meloetta is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Go

Diancie
At the time of writing, Diancie has only been made available in Pokemon Go via paid events. However, following precedent it is highly likely that it will be released for free later on in the same manner as other mythicals, so I am including it here despite it not currently being a freely-obtainable species.

Diancie was last available on August 27th, 2023 from ticketed Special Research in Pokemon Go

Hoopa
Hoopa is a disputable case. It was available from Pokemon Go via the "Misunderstood Mischief" questline, which was timelocked and is currently no longer available. However, it was stated that Hoopa would be made available again at some point in the future, so I am including it here as it was, at one point, available for free. edit: at the time of writing, Hoopa has since returned to Pokemon Go but only via Elite Raids.

Hoopa was last available on December 10th, 2022 from Elite Raids in Pokemon Go

Magearna
Magearna is available in Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon via scanning a QR code. This makes it the first, and so far only, mythical to be available via an in-game event before any external event distributions.

The Original Colour Magearna is also technically freely available via Pokemon Home. Six Pokemon are available to the player as Mystery Gifts in Pokemon Home without needing to connect to any other software, meaning that players can technically repeatedly trade to fill the Pokedex without relying on other games. However, in practice this would be extremely difficult and time-consuming. This makes Original Colour Magearna significantly harder to obtain than any of the other "free" mythicals.

Magearna is currently indefinitely available in Pokemon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, and Pokemon Home

Meltan and Melmetal
Meltan and Melmetal are available from Pokemon Go via the "Let's GO, Meltan!" questline and infinitely using the Mystery Box. Pokemon Home gives the player a Melmetal as a Mystery Gift after transferring any species from Pokemon Go.

Meltan and Melmetal are currently indefinitely available

Zarude
Similarly to Hoopa, Zarude was available from Pokemon Go via the "Search for Zarude!" questline, which was timelocked and is currently no longer available. Unlike with Hoopa, it was not clarified in what form Zarude would be available if and when it ever returns to the game, so I am including it here as a partial example.

Original form Zarude was last available on November 30, 2021 from an event distribution, while Dada Zarude was last available on December 31, 2021 from an event distribution

With those examples out of the way, let's move on to the Pokemon not freely available.

Event-Exclusive Pokemon

Darkrai
As the oldest remaining event-exclusive mythical, Darkrai has had 14 distinct distributions in Gens IV, V, VI, and VII. Unsurprisingly, it is the most available of the event-exclusive mythical species, and has been available for 909 days in total.

Darkrai was last available on November 5th, 2021 from raids and Go Battle League rewards in Pokemon Go. It is also available indefinitely in Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, and White via an unofficial server exploit.

Genesect
Genesect has had six distinct distributions in Gens V, VI, and VII, and has been available for 849 days in total.

At the time of writing Genesect is currently available from raids in Pokemon Go, and will remain so until September 23rd, 2023. Prior to this it was last available on December 31st from an event distribution. It is also available indefinitely in Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 via an unofficial server exploit.

Diancie
Diancie has had nine distinct distributions in Gen VI, and has been available for 333 days in total; see also its inclusion in the previous section.

Diancie was last available on August 27th, 2023 from ticketed Special Research in Pokemon Go

Volcanion
Volcanion has had four distinct distributions in Gens VI and VIII, and has been available for 666 days in total.

Volcanion was last available on December 31, 2021 from an event distribution

Marshadow
Marshadow has had three distinct distributions in Gens VII and VIII, and has been available for 575 days in total.

Marshadow was last available on December 31, 2021 from an event distribution

Zeraora
Zeraora has had two distinct distributions in Gens VII and VIII, and has been available for 420 days in total.

Zarude
Zarude has had six distinct distributions in Gen VIII, and has been available for 345 days in total. Though I listed Zarude above, I am including it here too because as the most recent mythical Pokemon, I had initially intended to omit it from the listing as it seemed likely that its numbers would have been far lower than the rest, making it an outlier. However, after seeing that Zarude's number is higher than Diancie's, I decided to include it.

EDIT: The Dada form of Zarude has so far been available for 338 days in total. As BlizzardHero notes below, the circumstances of the pandemic made obtaining it more difficult than previous legendary and mythical distributions, meaning that its wide availability does not indicate the full story.

Original form Zarude was last available on November 30, 2021 from an event distribution, while Dada Zarude was last available on December 31, 2021 from an event distribution

Looking at the numbers above, we have an obvious winner - Diancie! Not only has it been available for the least amount of time overall, it has only ever been distributed in Gen VI. Oddly, considering that it's available in SwSh.

Cross your fingers for a Diancie-themed Go Fest in 2023...

edit: Oh, look at that, I predicted correctly. So - assuming Diancie becomes freely available within the next 12 months - what's the new winner? That'd be - unsurprisingly - Zarude, or Dada Zarude to be specific. It's the last mythical we've seen in the series to date, and has not been available in any form since 2021. Regular Zarude's last distribution date was November 30th, 2021 (all regions) while Dada Zarude's last distribution date was December 31st, 2021 (again all regions).

Magearna or Manaphy for next year's Go Fest, perhaps? Since I predicted correctly last time... though tbf Niantic is running low on cutesy mythicals. I'd be happy with a Volcanion-centred Go Fest, personally.


another edit: thought it'd be useful to clarify the last date that each Pokemon has been available. For the majority, this is December 2022 - ironically, despite being the most available mythical Pokemon in terms of distributions, Darkrai is the species that has been available least recently as there has been no way to legitimately obtain one since 2021.


TL;DR

There isn't one, this is the whole post. Thanks for reading.

 

[R_N]

I think disallowing the save data bonuses is a little weird. It's true its not "free" by definition of needing another game, but as far as these things go its actually fairly accessible (& future proof). If you're going to count Mew & Melmetal (good luck getting this without Let's Go or Home, honestly....) I think you should absolutely count the save bonuses.

e: More to the point of this topic, it's wild to me that Diancie isn't available anywhere in gen 7 or 8. Especially since they keep putting it in spin offs!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I think disallowing the save data bonuses is a little weird. It's true its not "free" by definition of needing another game, but as far as these things go its actually fairly accessible (& future proof).

Ehhh I went back and forth on that but the key point in the OP was "external influence", hence me equivalating it to events. Like, if you only had a copy of Brilliant Diamond and nothing else, you would never be able to get the save data bonus mythicals. Granted that's a highly specific circumstance (and yes you can borrow a friend's copy or whatever) but as I said I'm talking about standard gameplay, which I don't think this is.

Also wrt it being a future proof method, it's entirely possible that in a decade when the Switch is old news and Nintendo inevitably shuts down the online services as it always does in favour of whatever console is current, digital copies of the Gen VIII games will at some point no longer be available and physical copies will become difficult/expensive to obtain. To put it another way, I can buy Omega Ruby (an eight-year old game at this point) today and get a Deoxys with no strings attached; I'm not sure that the same can be said for Brilliant Diamond.

Also, accessibility isn't the be all and end all; there's no reason to assume that because someone has one of the Gen VIII games they have access to (or even the inclination to obtain) others.

If you're going to count Mew & Melmetal (good luck getting this without Let's Go or Home, honestly....)

Uh... what? Mew is a paid extra in LGPE and Melmetal cannot be obtained in LGPE at all. As I stated, my premise assumes that Home is the "base title" you're using, meaning that the assumption is that you're transferring the mythical in question to Home via the path of least resistance.

Mew and Melmetal can both be obtained in Go with no impediment or cost and be transferred straight to Home; Let's Go isn't needed for that process (not least because transferring any Pokemon to Home from Go nets you a free Melmetal anyway). And because both Go and Home are free, they're by definition more accessible than any other game in the series.

 

[R_N]

Ehhh I went back and forth on that but the key point in the OP was "external influence", hence me equivalating it to events. Like, if you only had a copy of Brilliant Diamond and nothing else, you would never be able to get the save data bonus mythicals. Granted that's a highly specific circumstance (and yes you can borrow a friend's copy or whatever) but as I said I'm talking about standard gameplay, which I don't think this is.

Also wrt it being a future proof method, it's entirely possible that in a decade when the Switch is old news and Nintendo inevitably shuts down the online services as it always does in favour of whatever console is current, digital copies of the Gen VIII games will at some point no longer be available and physical copies will become difficult/expensive to obtain. To put it another way, I can buy Omega Ruby (an eight-year old game at this point) today and get a Deoxys with no strings attached; I'm not sure that the same can be said for Brilliant Diamond.

Also, accessibility isn't the be all and end all; there's no reason to assume that because someone has one of the Gen VIII games they have access to (or even the inclination to obtain) others.

I mean if you have no problems buying Omega Ruby 8 years out & hypothetical Legends Arceus in some X years from now you're not going to have problems buying Brilliant Diamond in this scenario, I feel certain.

I wasn't even considering difficulty in tracking down the games for this because that's a problem that applies to literally everything* and will likely more strongly affect the 3DS titles** before Switch's titles get to this worry point. Just that you can do it and if you're tracking down one well you're probably tracking down another.
Anyway when I think availability i think "you can do this with minimal difficulty in the future". Contrast with Ranch which is...much more annoying if you want everything "legit", since you'd be required to actually track down used Wiis

*This list will become VERY depressing whenever Go decides to shut down
**Incidentally if anyone wants the Celebi you should probably buy Crystal while you still can...

Uh... what? Mew is a paid extra in LGPE and Melmetal cannot be obtained in LGPE at all. As I stated, my premise assumes that Home is the "base title" you're using, meaning that the assumption is that you're transferring the mythical in question to Home via the path of least resistance.

Mew and Melmetal can both be obtained in Go with no impediment or cost and be transferred straight to Home; Let's Go isn't needed for that process (not least because transferring any Pokemon to Home from Go nets you a free Melmetal anyway). And because both Go and Home are free, they're by definition more accessible than any other game in the series.

The parenthetical was for Melmetal specifically because getting Melmetal without that free one from Home is a god damn nightmare. The amount of timers and shit you have to catch to actually evolve it...horrible.

Thankfully I did forget that the Go Transporter doesnt require an extra fee (because it wants you to spend microtransactions in go for fast recharges lol) and that the Home G-Max Melmetal gift has no timer. So long as those two things remain true at least no one has to deal with that beyond the one time for Meltan.

 

[Rapti]

Hey everybody, can you guess which is the only mythical I don't have? you know besides Volcanion which is a terrible pokemon

bet you it's because it mega evolves and Gamefreak wants to forget that ever happened

 

[misterdarvus]

This thread appears in a perfect moment when SwSh Battle Stadium announced to allows mythicals into the fray.

 

[Shedinja-43152]

I think the rarest mythical Pokémon untill the third generation was the Jirachi.
Mew have a famous glitch to catch him.
Celebi have the pokeball GS event in pokémon Crystal.
Mew, Deoxys, Lugia and Ho Oh have events to catch in the remakes.
Just Jirachi is just obtable via cheat. So I think here is the rarest.

 

[R_N]

I think the rarest mythical Pokémon untill the third generation was the Jirachi.
Mew have a famous glitch to catch him.
Celebi have the pokeball GS event in pokémon Crystal.
Mew, Deoxys, Lugia and Ho Oh have events to catch in the remakes.
Just Jirachi is just obtable via cheat. So I think here is the rarest.

If we're limiting it to Gen 3 specifically, and considering all avenues at the time, Jirachi has the Colosseum bonus disc that let's you get as many as you want provided you want to keep restarting your games. While Europe has to rely on Channel and Japan didn't get this at all (THEIR bonus disc instead had a Celebi as a 100% Colosseum save data bonus; but they also got like yearly give aways of Jirachi for tanabata so hey give & take) I think this puts the ball into Jirachi's court.

 

[BlizzardHero]

bet you it's because it mega evolves and Gamefreak wants to forget that ever happened

GF: Hehe, let's kill off the gimmicks each new gen now, so we can keep introducing new dumb wonky things to sell more games/toys
TPC writing the anime and adding every gimmick back in: We're doing what now?
GF: Surprised Pikachu Face

I decided to look at each mythical and count how many times they have been distributed, and for how long. Primarily, I will be counting the period of days a Pokemon has been made available in total.

I think you really should differentiate between the different permanent mythical forms, namely for A: Original Magearna and B: Dada Zarude. Other form changes are mostly free to do in-game (depending on story progression prerequisites), but both Original Magearna and Dada Zarude are locked to their specific forms, and thus have different distribution quirks.

Original Magearna is ofc free to obtain provided that you have both Home and dex entries for all Pokemon - which is a pretty high perquisite. So while it is free, it certainly is the hardest of the "free" mythical Pokemon to obtain.

Dada Zarude is a different story. In order to get it, you'd need to have either gone to the movie premier in-person in Japan/Korea/Taiwan (I to, travel internationally during a pandemic just to get a single mon! Yay!) or have signed up for the newsletter prior to whenever the international distribution occurred. About half of the Zarude distributions were Dada Zarude. While I don't have data on the exact date data, it's probably safe to assume that it's about 50/50%. Which, would probably make Zarude in it's various forms a bit more exclusive.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I think you really should differentiate between the different permanent mythical forms, namely for A: Original Magearna and B: Dada Zarude. Other form changes are mostly free to do in-game (depending on story progression prerequisites), but both Original Magearna and Dada Zarude are locked to their specific forms, and thus have different distribution quirks.

Original Magearna is ofc free to obtain provided that you have both Home and dex entries for all Pokemon - which is a pretty high perquisite. So while it is free, it certainly is the hardest of the "free" mythical Pokemon to obtain.

Dada Zarude is a different story. In order to get it, you'd need to have either gone to the movie premier in-person in Japan/Korea/Taiwan (I to, travel internationally during a pandemic just to get a single mon! Yay!) or have signed up for the newsletter prior to whenever the international distribution occurred. About half of the Zarude distributions were Dada Zarude. While I don't have data on the exact date data, it's probably safe to assume that it's about 50/50%. Which, would probably make Zarude in it's various forms a bit more exclusive.

This is a really good point and something I didn't consider too much when writing the original post - because after all, forms are irrelevant to Pokedex completion. Original Colour Magearna or regular Magearna, you've still got the dex entry. But yes, Original Colour Magearna would certainly be the hardest variant form to obtain in terms of sheer effort.

But you made another good point re Dada Zarude - I actually had a lot of difficulty obtaining Zarude during my "complete Home without paying a penny" challenge because of the complexity with trading the different Zarude releases. Can the Dada Zarude be traded now? Just Googled and can't get a straight answer...

Will edit the OP. Thanks for contributing!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Rereading this earlier and amused at how things have changed since I wrote it, so I updated it a bit to reflect current state of affairs. Diancie is still technically the rarest mythical, though in the wider sense Zarude has now moved from second place to first.

We won't know for certain until both parts of the Teal Mask DLC are released, but it'll be interesting whether any of the species in it correspond to mythicals as we think of them. I said the other day that we might have seen the end of mythicals in the series in the old sense, but maybe it'll be time to expand the category by broaden the definition of the term. Calyrex, for instance, is categorised as a legendary rather than a mythical - but will it be made available regularly in future titles?

 

[pika pal]

The thing I'd be interested to see is if they repurpose Legendaries to fit new gimmicks as an excuse to reintroduce them (temporarily or permanently): for example they could tie Diancie to the Tera Crystals instead of the Gems and Mega stuff if they're ditching that gimmick.

I expect anything labeled "Legendary" will be regularly obtainable within 2-3 Gens of its debut once the novelty/rarity of them has worn off, especially since without the Mythical label they have to be accounted for in VGC, something TPC already is getting a lot of heat for problems with among other issues and thus is within their resources to fix.