Back in March, Niantic finally added the mythical Pokémon Mew to Pokémon GO with the introduction of research quests. These come in two different forms: Field Research and Special Research, and provide you with regular rewards for completing objectives.
A Mythical Discovery was, at the time, the only Special Research quest available in Pokémon GO, and it's the quest you have to complete to get your grubby little mitts on Mew. Completing it requires you to work your way through a series of eight different objectives, which can prove pretty time-consuming.
In this guide, we're going to try and make this as easy as possible for you. We'll list all of the requirements for each stage to help you to plan ahead. Certain steps you can only perform when you unlock them, but there's many that you can prepare for ahead of time.
On this page: Pokémon GO Mew - A Mythical Discovery Special Research Walkthrough
How To Catch Mew In Pokémon GO
To catch Mew in Pokémon GO, you have to complete the Special Research quest A Mythical Discovery. This is located in the same place as your Field Research quests. Tap on the binoculars icon, then visit the 'Special' column.
Complete all of the objectives for the Special Research Quest and you'll collect Mew at the end. Now, here's how Special Research Quests work in Pokémon GO.
Special Research Quests Explained
Special Research are story-driven quests that require you to perform eight different stages of objectives, which generally cover all aspects of the game from evolving Pokémon to battling in raids. They aren't to be confused with Field Research quests, which offer quick-fire daily quests for a little reward.
While you have to complete objectives at the point you unlock them, you can prepare for certain tasks ahead of time. Good examples of these are earning medials, reaching a certain level, or evolving certain Pokémon.
To help you prepare, we've got a list of every single objective, organised by stage, below. So go ahead and check what you have to do to beat the quest. We'll pop an asterix (*) by the quests you can work on ahead of time so you can instantly recognise them.
Pokémon GO - A Mythical Discovery Walkthrough
Stage One
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Spin Five PokéStops | 500 XP |
Catch 10 Pokémon | 500 XP |
Transfer Five Pokémon | 500 XP |
Completion: | 10 Great Balls / Incubator / Three Lure Modules |
Stage Two
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Earn Two Candy While Walking Your Buddy | 1,000 XP |
Make 10 Great Throws | 1,000 XP |
Hatch Three Eggs | 1,000 XP |
Completion: | 2,000 Stardust / Three Incense / 20 Great Balls |
Stage Three
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Reach Trainer Level 15* | 1,500 XP |
Battle In Two Raids | 1,500 XP |
Battle In A Gym Twice | 1,500 XP |
Completion: | Fast TM / Charge TM / Two Star Pieces |
Stage Four
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Earn The Kanto Silver Medal* | 2,000 XP |
Evolve 20 Pokémon* | 2,000 XP |
Earn Five Candy While Walking Your Buddy | 2,000 XP |
Completion: | 4,000 Stardust / Three Lure Modules / 20 Great Balls |
Stage Five
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Catch Ditto | 2,500 XP |
Catch 10 Ghost-Types | 2,500 XP |
Perform 20 Great Throws | 2,500 XP |
Completion: | Premium Raid Pass / Lucky Egg / 15 Revives |
Stage Six
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Reach Trainer Level 25* | 3,000 XP |
Evolve A Magikarp | 3,000 XP |
Perform 10 Raids | 3,000 XP |
Completion: | 6,000 Stardust / Five Rare Candies / Three Incense |
Stage Seven
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Catch 50 Pokémon Using A Berry | 3,500 XP |
Earn A Kanto Gold Medal* | 3,500 XP |
Perform An Excellent Curve Throw | 3,500 XP |
Completion: | 8,000 Stardust / Five Great Balls / Mew |
Stage Eight
Quest | Reward |
---|---|
Catch Mew | 4,000 XP / 10,000 Stardust / Super Incubator / 20 Mew Candy |
This article is part of our Pokémon GO walkthrough and guide series. We have articles that take you through the basics, covering How To Catch Pokémon: Throwing Tips, Poké Balls, & Capture Rates, How To Redeem Pokémon GO Promo Codes, How To Check A Pokémon's IVs Using An IV Calculator, How Trading Works, How To Track Pokémon Using Maps And Trackers, What Star Pieces And Stardust Do And How To Get Them, How Player Vs. Player Trainer Battles Work, and How To Complete Field Research And Research Breakthroughs And All Rewards.
We cover regular weekly and monthly Pokémon GO events, such as Spotlight Hour Times And Bonus Hour Times, and Community Days. We also have charts, including a Type Chart With Effectiveness And Weakness For All Types, an Egg Chart Explaining 2km, 5km, 7km, & 10km Eggs, and a Buddy Chart Explaining How To Earn Candy.
Elsewhere we cover Friend Code And Sharing Them For Easy XP and Which Pokémon GO 'Auto Catch' Companion Device Is The Best, plus more advanced tactics and info such as All Fast Moves And Charge Moves, How To Get TMs, And How It All Works, Shiny Pokémon And How To Catch Them, Glacial Lures, Magnetic Lures, Mossy Lures in Pokémon GO (And Their Exclusive Evolutions), How To Get Lots Of Candy Fast, How Lucky Pokémon Work & How To Catch Them, How To Catch All 27 Regional Pokémon, the Best Attackers And Best Defenders, All Raid Bosses And Best Counters Listed By Tier, What EX Raids Are And How To Get EX Raid Passes, What A Super Incubators Does And How To Get One, and How Get Mega Energy.
Pocket Monster-wise, we have specific guides for How To Get Pangoro, Sylveon, Glaceon, Aromatisse, Slurpuff, Sirfetch’d, Galarian Cofagrigus And More, How To Get Sylveon, Leafeon, Glaceon, Umbreon, Espeon, Vaporeon, Jolteon And Flareon, How To Evolve Wurmple Into Silcoon Or Cascoon, How To Get Tyrogue, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan And Hitmontop, How To Use The Weather To Get Each Castform Form, How To Catch And Evolve Into Galarian Slowbro, How To Catch Smeargle, How To Find And Evolve Burmy, How To Catch Spinda, Where To Find Unown, How To Catch Ditto, and The Rarest Pokémon Including Wild, Shiny, Mythical And Regional Catches.
We also cover timed research and special events, including Mew's 'A Mythical Discovery', Jirachi's 'A Thousand-Year Slumber', Celebi's 'A Ripple In Time', and Regigigas' 'A Colossal Discovery'. Other (past) event guides include Twitch Codes List - Pokémon World Championship 2022, How To Battle A Challenger (World Championships 2022), How To Battle Fashion Challengers, 'A Spooky Message' Spiritomb Quest, Kanto Event FAQ, and the Summer Tour 2018 Chicago GO Fest And Dortmund And Yokosuka Safari Zones.
Finally, there's our WIP Pokémon GO Pokédex, which currently goes up to 400 Pokémon: #1-50 | #51-100 | #101-150 | #151-200 | #201-250 | #251-300 | #301-350 | #351-400.
Comments 23
Well I'm not managing this...
It sucks that the Magikarp evolution isn't retroactive. The Kanto event and double candy is helping though. A magikarp with a berry gives 12 candy, 14 if you include the transfer candy.
That curveball excellent is a nightmare though. Literally only thing I'm stuck with.
I'm surprised so many people don't have enough Magikarp candies... I still have over 1000 after evolving one for the Mew quests, and that's nothing compared to people who spend a lot of time near the waterfront in my town.
I got Mew last Monday myself, and the only thing that held me up was stage 5, as we didn't have any ghost type nests at the time, so I had to go out late at night to find them... and Ditto I got lucky with as my Pokemon GO Plus caught one for me on my way into town that day.
Also, a couple of tips...
For either of the buddy candy quests it's a good idea to switch to a Pokemon with a low buddy distance (such as Magikarp) to get those tasks cleared a lot quicker.
When you get to the 10 raids quest, just find an easy raid, go into the battle, but drop back out to the lobby and let the timer run out... this counts as one raid, but you can repeat it multiple times on a single raid pass until the raid de-spawns.
@DragonEleven Thanks for the raiding tip!
@DragonEleven There's literally almost NO Magikarp to be found where I live (Sacramento). In the past, I've travelled to San Francisco for the day to catch Magikarp at the pier, looks like that's what I'll have to do again.
Sometimes I think they want people to spoof, where am I going to find all those ghosts or a ditto.
@loyalroyal1989 To be fair, Ghosts are aren't that rare at night & it seems Gastly is spawning a LOT more during the Kanto event. Also, Ditto rates seem to be up... I just spent a couple of days catching Pidgey & Rattata (common pokémon) on the way into work and BANG caught a Ditto.
A lot of these research tasks are pretty easy to do if you're just a little patient, if just catching a few pokémon over a few days is so tedious someone needs to spoof... I'm not sure Pokémon Go is the right game for them.
I thought I had to surf over to that area with the truck, use strength to move it, and there would be a Pokeball with a Mew in it.
What is all this silliness?
@Heavyarms55 Yes because Mew is outside Lavender Town.
I'm stuck on the "catch ditto" one. Might as well make the quest "catch a shiny". Stupid having something random be a quest.
@loyalroyal1989
I have been having the same thought for 4 days about those dam ghost types ... but today? OMG! they all came out to play!!
And thanks to the person who gave the 10 raids tip? ... I'm waiting till tomorrow to hit those raids.
The next challenge looks easy so looking forward to meeting Mew
I'm seeing mixed reports about the trick for raids... some people are saying that Niantic has now fixed it so that you have to 10 separate raids rather than letting the same one time out repeatedly, but others are saying that it's still working for them.
It's possible that the people saying it's not working could just be doing it wrong... you have to drop back to the lobby until the timer runs out, not quit the raid completely... I suspect this may be where those people are going wrong.
However, as it is unlikely that Niantic intended for the research task to be completed in this way, they may well fix it at some point.
Just caughtmew 10 minutes ago, used all the candies to power him up to 1800. Will there be nore opportunities to get mew candies? Possibly raids,eggs or evwn wild ones?
@Nichoharri For now, I think you can only get more candies from walking with him as your buddy or by using Rare Candy from raids.
@ROBLOGNICK
Me too, I’ve been catching EVERY potential ditto since about the third day and no luck. The double candy event had almost no commons spawning in my area so I barely even had a chance, I’m so glad it’s over but still nothing. So frustrating since it’s not even a goal you can really work towards, all you can do is catch another pidgey (etcetera) and be disappointed.
For those of you interested, mew as your buddy takes 20 km to get one candy....
@Menchi187 save some pinap berries for the water event (in summer) when you can make magikarp your buddy and have them pop up everywhere.
@Nichoharri Mewtwo is in raids, but not Mew. i think its the same candy though
"catch a ditto" ya i got mine like right when i was about to be at lvl25 i got him i trun my phone on and there was a pidgey righht under me like i was standing on it
and so when you get mew and complete all 8 of the missions is it over or is there different ones
and can you guys on the next update do like a pokemon health center that would help alot lol thanks
"catch a ditto" ya i got mine like right when i was about to be at lvl25 i got him i trun my phone on and there was a pidgey righht under me like i was standing on it
and so when you get mew and complete all 8 of the missions is it over or is there different ones
and can you guys on the next update do like a pokemon health center that would help alot lol thanks
and i still look for someone to help me get magikarps in pokemon go so i can get this magnificent little creature
my id if you want to help me: 9420 3939 5401
if its me my buddy is a magikarp named helpmegetmew
i will give you whatever i have if you want to help me for free
@DragonEleven can you get me magikarps? this is my id 9420 3939 5401
in my location we have a tiny body of water but there is litteraly nothing there
if you want to do it for free then i will just give whatever i have and i will be sure to give you everyday a gift.just lemme know if you want to help me
@Menchi187 well in my case im stuck with 120 magikarp candy and magikarps rarely spawn
in my location
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