Pokemon.com claims that the
raid events will happen from Thursday August 8 to Sunday August 17, and if you look at today's date you'll see the problem with that. The previous raid events have usually spanned these weekend times so I think this could just be a quick copy paste error, but I was wondering about the original raid timeline before Chesnaught delayed everything by a month. Since there was some Mewtwo cross promotion going on in June-July that could have aligned pretty well, I wondered about what the intended timeline would look like for when this Mewtwo raid was supposed to happen.
Here are some events I've lined up related to raids and things the Presents covered:
May 19-21: The original Chesnaught rerun with bugged paradoxes
May 26-28: original Delphox run?
June 2-4: original Delphox rerun?
June 7: announcement that the Chesnaught rerun is fixed
June 9-11: original Rillaboom run date (leaked by the
Nintendo Switch news article)
June 16-18: original Rillaboom rerun?
June 16-18: actual Chesnaught rerun date
June 20: Pokemon Trainer Cruise announced
June 21: Nintendo Direct + Gimmighoul raid event (to July 2) + Detective Pikachu Returns announcement
June 24: Mewtwo and Mew event in Cafe Remix
June 29: Mewtwo + Panic Parade official announcement for Unite
June 29: Pokemon SV 1.3.2 release date (with the new Mew/Mewtwo raid mechanic)
July 3: Delphox announcement
July 6: New Mew outfit in Cafe Remix.
July 7-9: actual Delphox run
July 14-16: actual Delphox rerun
July 17: actual Rillaboom announcement (the raid would be 2 weeks later unlike most other announcements)
July 17: Pokemon Sleep launches.
July 18: Worlds trailer
July 19: Pokemon Trainer Cruise registration opens
July 20: Horizons anime dub trailer
July 21: All the Unite 2nd Anniversary content covered (Mega Mewtwo X + Panic Parade)
(Panic Parade was playable from July 21 to July 31, and returns each weekend from Aug 4-6, Aug 11-13, and Aug 18-20. It is not currently playable despite being advertised in the Presents.)
July 24: Tera Dark Charizard gift, reflected across the anime/TCG
July 26: The late July 2023 NSO game update for Oracle of Ages/Seasons
July 27: Shiny Grimmsnarl gift distribution
July 27: Nemona + the final Presents date datamined from Masters
July 28-30: actual Rillaboom run
August 1: Pokemon Sleep is getting an event for every full moon and the last full moon was August 1 while the next one won't be until August 30.
August 4-6: Half the GO Fest events that they announced already happened.
August 4-6: actual Rillaboom rerun
If Chesnaught wasn't delayed, then we would have neatly finished up with all the starters before the Gimmighoul raid event started. Afterwards we might have heard about Mew/Mewtwo on June 29 itself to align with the update and other Mewtwo announcements, and the preparation raids + Mewtwo taking place over the next weeks right after Gimmighoul instead of the delayed Delphox, which would allow the Dark type Charizard and Shiny Grimmsnarl gifts to add some advantages against it. If it started on July 21 and lasted the same 18 days, it would have even ended on August 8th which is an interesting coincidence. As it is now, Mewtwo's raid (Aug 31-Sept 17) will go on past the DLC release date of September 13th which is a bit awkward. I was also considering the possibility of the 5-star raids being tied to each rerun, since Delphox has a significant advantage over both Scizor and Hydreigon, but Rillaboom doesn't have much to do with Hatterene and Grimmsnarl. At this point I'm kind of just grasping at straws and I don't think this would have affected most of the Presents, but it's interesting how we've been delayed a month now and can see some of the results of it across different media, with even Rillaboom's initial raid run seemingly being delayed 1 week just to have it align with the next raid event more neatly. Since Mewtwo will end after the DLC releases, we could probably see an influx of new options for themed raid bosses, but I wonder about the original events that would have taken up the time between Mewtwo that we didn't end up seeing.
I think the
Clefairy mass outbreak event on September 28 is probably the next thing scheduled on time, since it's a whole new mechanic and tied to the full moon. It's nice that the DLC mons will be made accessible in some way to regular players.