Shiny Pokemon are now being released in Pokemon Go.
On Wednesday afternoon, players began to discover shiny Magikarps and Gyaradoses in the game. As soon as this information came to light, players naturally wondered about the IVs of these Pokemon. Does a Pokemon being shiny necessarily mean it is extremely high powered? Or are those things completely unrelated?
It appears that a Pokemon’s shiny status in Pokemon Go is completely unrelated to its IVs. One player who caught a shiny Magikarp reported on Reddit that when checking the Pokemon’s appraisal, its maximum was 93.3 percent, its average was 68.6 percent, and its minimum was 48.9 percent.
Another Reddit user reported that the shiny Magikarp they caught had IVs of 68.9 percent, 71.1 percent, and 75.6 percent.
In the screenshots below, you’ll see a Magikarp that is shiny but that the game notes has room for improvement.
At this time, it’s not totally clear if there’s any correlation between a Pokemon’s shiny status and its IVs, but it does not appear that there is a link. Certainly catching a shiny Pokemon does not guarantee that this Pokemon will have high IVs.
The only two Pokemon that currently have shiny versions in the game are Magikarp and Gyrados.