Pokemon GO Ties Minior’s Debut to Real Meteor Showers – First Window Opens October 19

Pokemon GO has confirmed one of the more unusual debuts in its history. Minior, the Rock/Flying-type from the Alola region, is coming to the game through a series of limited events called Minior Showers – and each one is tied to a real meteor shower in the night sky. The first window opens on October 19, 2026, and the last one in the announced run closes in August 2027.

What Minior Showers actually are

Minior has seven different Core forms, each with its own color. Instead of dropping them all at once, Pokemon GO is spreading them across six separate events, each lined up with an astronomical event you can see for yourself. During each Minior Shower, Minior spawns in the wild with an increased catch rate, and catching it hands out bonus Stardust. The in-game sky also gets shooting stars for the duration.

One catch: the game hasn’t said which Core color belongs to which event, so you won’t know in advance what you’re hunting. If you’re chasing the full set, you’ll need to show up for all of them.

Full Minior Showers schedule

• Orionids – October 19 at 5:00 PM to October 24 at 11:59 PM
• Leonids – November 14 at 5:00 PM to November 19 at 11:59 PM
• Geminids – December 11 at 5:00 PM to December 16 at 11:59 PM
• Eta Aquariids – May 3 at 5:00 PM to May 8 at 11:59 PM
• Southern Delta Aquariids – July 28 at 5:00 PM to August 2 at 11:59 PM
• Perseids – August 10 at 5:00 PM to August 15 at 11:59 PM

The December Geminids edition is the odd one out: it adds two Minior Cores, but one is locked to the Northern Hemisphere and the other to the Southern Hemisphere. If you want both, you’ll be relying on trades or friends on the other side of the planet.

Form changes in battle

Minior doesn’t just look different – it plays differently depending on how the fight is going. It starts in Meteor Form, which has higher Defense and lower Attack. Once its health drops below 50%, it flips into Core Form, trading Defense for Attack. That gives you something to plan around, especially in defensive leads that turn into closers.

Be aware of the limits, though. Minior can only switch forms while battling in the GO Battle League, or when you beat Team Rocket and team leaders. Everywhere else, it stays put.

What else is coming to Pokemon GO

The Halloween season Twilight Trails still has plenty queued up. From October 4 to 10, a limited-time spacesuit Pikachu shows up in One-Star Raids. On October 13, the Grass/Ghost-type Bramblin arrives through GO Pass tasks or Incense encounters. Further out, Mega Chandelure and Dynamax Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf are all expected to debut.

Scopely has also picked Zorua for the October 10 Community Day, with bonuses including triple XP and double Candy from catches. Looking ahead, the first in-person GO Tour 2027 events in Taiwan and the US are set for February 19 to 21.

Minior is far from the only Alolan creature to land late – Mimikyu arrived back in April, and the Mythical Zeraora debuted through Special Research during GO Fest 2026: Global, making it one of the rarest monsters in the game.

Where to go next

If you want to keep up with everything happening around the series, we collect it all in our Pokemon news hub. We’ve also written about Pokemon GO’s Mega Gengar retail raids and about an earlier costumed Charmander code. On the mainline side, we covered Pokemon Winds and Waves as well. You can find the game itself on the official Pokemon GO site.

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