‘Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire’ Australia, NZ Hoopa event detailed, new ‘Pokemon Shuffle’ events sighted

The year opens with quite a few events for Pokemon players. This time, a few new game events and a Battle Competition will run for the month.

“Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire” players in Australia and New Zealand will have a week-long event running from Jan. 18 to 26. According to trusted Pokemon source Serebii, the event will feature JB Hi-Fi stores. The Hoopa event will be a serial code card distribution, which requires the player to go to the store to collect it.

Afterwards, players can redeem their Hoopa Pokemon in “Pokemon X and Y” or “Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.” So far, the sourcel stated that the store involved in the event is still subject to change for the meantime.

Another game that’s getting an event is “Pokemon Shuffle.” Running until Jan. 12, the Mega Water Pokemon competition, which will give the Swampertite as its prize, will be available for players, iDigital Times reported. It pretty much runs at the same time as the recently introduced Talonflame event and the new Safari Zone, so “Pokemon Shuffle” will really be busy in the next couple of days.

The player needs to rank among the top 12,000 in Europe and 18,000 in the US to get the Swampertite. Those who are in the 2,300 in Europe and 3,600 in the US will also get a Mega Speedup. Other prizes included in the event are an Attack Power, a Disruption Delay and a Jewel.

“Pokemon Shuffle Mobile” also has an event running until Jan. 12. However, the actual event is different in that the Mega Banette stage will let the top players earn the Banettite. This prize will be available to those at the top 100,000 worldwide. Similar prizes as in the Nintendo 3DS version are up for grabs, such as the Mega Speedup, Attack Power and a Jewel, depending on a player’s ranking.

Finally, there’s also a new Battle Competition announced, titled the 2016 International Challenge January competition. The Double Battle competition will let players use two of any of the box Legendary Pokemon. Among the qualified Legendary Pokemon are, Dialga, Giratina, Groudon, Ho-Oh, Kyogre, Kyurem, Lugia, Mewtwo, Palkia, Rayquaza, Reshiram, Xerneas, Yveltal, Zekrom and Zygard.

Players can already register starting Jan. 21 to 28, to prepare for the battles running from Jan. 29 to 31. All participating players will get 2000 PokeMiles.

"Pokemon Shuffle" Swampertite (Credit: YouTube/Knopf Püppchen)