How to Obtain and Shiny Hunt Vivillon Patterns in Scarlet and Violet

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have a new functionality where you can send Post Cards from Pokémon GO to change the Vivillon forms in your game. This means that you can quite easily obtain each of the Vivillon forms as well as shiny hunt them all within Scarlet and Violet. In this guide, we'll detail how you can go about connecting to GO and sending postcards. Additional, we have some general tips to help make your hunt for all of the different shiny Vivillon Patterns much easier.

Note on Vivillon forms/patterns: Vivillon's entire evolution family stores the Pattern Vivillon will take as an internal value known as a form that cannot be changed. This means that once you catch a Scatterbug or Spewpa, it will always evolve into the same pattern, even if you were to send in a Postcard from another location and evolve it while that's active. Additionally, all Spewpa that were bred and hatched in Scarlet and Violet will always be Fancy Form. This means that you cannot catch alternate forms and expect to breed for a shiny. You can only obtain these forms in-game by catching them with this new mechanic.

Additionally, Poké Ball Pattern is still unavailable. GameFreak will have to provide some kind of event to give us this pattern.

linkSetting Up On Pokémon GO

In order to get this to work, you're going to need to have some Postcards saved on your Pokémon GO account. If you're in need of some friends in the game, head over to our Discord Server to make some new friends!

Once you've got some friends, they can start sending you gifts. Just be sure to "Pin" or save the gifts when you get them so that you can keep the Postcards. Postcards are how you will get the Vivillon forms in Scarlet and Violet so make sure you collect a bunch!

linkConnecting to Pokémon GO

Connecting to Pokémon GO is a really straight forward process. Follow these steps:

1. Head to Settings in Pokémon GO (tap the Poké Ball icon, then choose settings)
2. Scroll down to "Connected Devices and Services" and select that option
3. In there, select "Nintendo Switch"
4. Go to your Nintendo Switch in Scarlet and Violet, and find the Mystery Gift page in the Poké Portal
5. Select "Connect to Pokémon GO"
6. Choose "Pair with a Pokémon GO account"
7. Go back to Pokémon GO, and select "Connect to Nintendo Switch", which will cause the button to display a "loading circle"
8. Your Switch will ask if you want to pair your accounts, so select yes.

Now you're ready to send postcards!

linkSending Postcards from Pokémon GO to Scarlet and Violet

Here's how to send a Postcard from GO to Scarlet and Violet.

1. Navigate to the Mystery Gift page in the Poké Portal in Scarlet and Violet
2. Select "Connect to Pokémon GO"
3. In Pokémon GO, open your Postcard book by going to Items, then scrolling down to Postcard Book
4. Select a Postcard in GO to send (see below for a resource on locations for different forms)
5. Click the button in the bottom right to get more options, and choose Send to Nintendo Switch
6. Make sure in Scarlet and Violet you are Connecting to Pokémon GO, and then select Send

Now, for the next 24 hours all Vivillon (and Scatterbug and Spewpa) in your copy of Scarlet and Violet will be the form corresponding to the location of the Postcard!

linkBest Locations for Scatterbug

We recommend hunting Scatterbug over the Vivillon forms if you're looking to get fast shinies. There are a few reasons for this recommendation. The first is that Scatterbug are much easier to catch than Vivillon, as they come at very low levels and have a high catch rate (you can use our Catch Calculator tool for Scarlet and Violet, all patterns have the same catch rate). Second, the auto battling with the Let's Go feature will easily clear out and allow new spawns to fill in, plus shinies will not be KO'd with this feature. However, identifying shiny Scatterbug is fairly difficult due to it's size, but it also doesn't move around nearly as much as Vivillon.

Also, any Scatterbug or Spewpa that you catch with the Postcard active will evolve into the same Vivillon Pattern, so hunting the pre-evolutions is just fine!

We recommend going to the southeast of Mesagosa to hunt Scatterbug (you'll also run into Tarountula, so you can hunt that shiny too!). Follow these directions for a pretty good loop:

• Fly to the Poké Center by the gate at south Mesagosa
• Run east along the edge of the cliff
• Head south towards the town
• Then follow the road back up to the Poké Center

linkBest Locations for Vivillon

If you want to hunt for Vivillon, they spawn consistently up in the North of the map near the North Lighthouse. You'll see quite a few spawn in around the flower area. These do not spawn as frequently as Scatterbug.

linkBug Encounter and Shining Power Sandwiches

An easy way to make Bug Sparkling Power Lv. 3, Bug Title Power Lv. 3, and Bug Encounter Power Lv. 3 is to follow the following recipe (don't let anything fall off the sandwich!):

• One serving of Cucumber
• One serving of Pickle
• Three servings of Cherry Tomatoes
• Any two Herba Mystica except for 1x Sweet + 1x Sour or 2x Sweet

This recipe lets you use any Herba Mystica you have on hand (with those exceptions) with fairly simple ingredients to obtain.

linkVivillon Pokémon GO Map

Pokémon GO developers, Niantic, have provided us with this very simple map that shows the different Vivillon Patterns and their locations:

For a fully detailed Vivillon Pokémon GO encounter map, check out this excellent community resource that has been tracking real-world locations and what Vivillon Patterns they produce in GO. Be warned, the map is massive and will probably not load on mobile. Again, feel free to join us on our Discord Server if you have questions and to coordinate with others for getting Postcards.

linkAdditional Tips

• You can only get a pattern from GO every 24 hours, but you can use multiple Pokémon GO accounts and date skipping on your Switch to bypass this rule
• As soon as you click "Connect to Pokémon GO" in Scarlet and Violet, you clear out the current Pattern
• You can share your current Vivillon Pattern with friends via the Union Room, if you want to hunt together, four friends can all have different Vivillon patterns at once
• You can overlap your pattern with a single Shining Power sandwich by sending a Postcard the day before, getting your shiny, then sending a new Postcard before the sandwich runs out

More tips and tricks will be added as we learn more about this process!