Lured Up - A Pokémon GO Podcast

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

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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

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