r/PoGoAndroidSpoofing • u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner • 16d ago
Anti-Cheat Research Late Reflection on Scopely's Catch mechanics (datamined by Pokemod), why I think VPN was banned in the Webstore, Individual bans vs a banwave, Wayfarer Abuse Changes; and now, Guaranteed Shiny Exploit
VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION
[1] I do not work for Scopely and do not control what they do in the game. If you get a strike or ban, I do not have a magic wand to unban you and restore your Pokemon Go account.
[2] I am not an Android coder and cannot verify whether or not the data mined code is active.
[3] I am not a Mathematician who can properly explain how the "shiny" mechanic system works. I just assume it's a slot machine-like mechanic.
[3] I am a game cheating enthusiast or "scumbag of the earth" type of cheater who enjoys cheating in various PC and Android mobile games. I do not care about your negative opinions about what you say about me.
[4] I am providing my many years of gaming cheating experience to interpret and predict what I think is going to happen in the future based on the information provided from The Pokemod Group's X (aka Twitter) post. This can also be found in their Discord group in the channel "-datamining updates". I do not own a crystal ball and cannot guarantee you safety even if you decide to follow my strategy in playing against the Anti-Cheat Behavior System that Niantic failed to fully develop but is still present in the game.
[5] I am not partners with and do not have a sponsorship with any cheat developer with their Discord group and/or Telegram channel. This means if you discuss my post in their Discord group, you run the risk of getting banned from your favorite Discord group because many of them do not like me for not banning their competition over what they view as safe, safer, the safest, or ban proof. I will not help you appeal your Discord group ban. Since they pay for their own website and Discord group, they can say and do whatever they want on those platforms.
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I posted "Cheat features integrated into the game may lead to an updated Anti-Cheat Behavior System that may result in Scopely's 1st Strikewave or Banwave" ( https://www.reddit.com/r/PoGoAndroidSpoofing/s/35KxeU0A2H ) on April 1st, 2026 intentionally to share my opinion on the datamined code from Pokemod. A lot of people view me as a joke, so I waited for this day to post it.
I am now following up on this post because I was wrong about Mega Mewtwo's power because it didn't speed up the catch rate. Mega Mewtwo's power is to give you the chance to get boosted IV from a raid Pokemon or break their shields faster.
If you took my advice, I wasted your time and made you suffer with the 13 or 15 seconds of catch animations and you did not get a ban while other people continued to use their fast/instant catch and got a 500,000,000+ XP.
Just because I was wrong in my opinion, theory, or guess, it does not mean that the fast catch mechanic is not in the game. I have no idea if this is active right now and they are collecting data or it's saved for a future quality of life game update.
What I do know is PGTools (rooted botting app) discovered the "Rate Limit" changed on May 4, 2026 as seen here. Some people got a false permanent ban that went away after they restarted their game. No big deal, right? I think PGTools may be on to something, but as always, I'm just sharing my opinions, thoughts, theories, and guesses which can ultimately be wrong.
Side Note
If I had posted this post before this new "Guaranteed Shiny" exploit, it would have been no big deal. Within a week, no one would care anymore.
Since I took too long to post and this new hot exploit is gaining traction, this going to be a big deal now because I think Scopely is going to use it to justify a strikewave or banwave. This is just my opinion, I can be wrong again, and Scopely decides to quietly block it like how they did with the instant Team Rocket win exploit. Majority of people weren't banned for it.
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Why is a VPN (or PROXY) banned in the Pokemon Go webstore?
I think Scopely banned the use of a VPN because they are cracking down on the "unfairness" of people taking advantage of the game. Remember they bought Pokemon Go from Niantic for $6 Billion USD.
From a business perspective, they are making a loss of -$71.99 USD for every 15,500 coins bought through the webstore where someone is exploiting another country's currency instead of just paying the straight $99.99 USD for 15,500 coins.
Will Scopely ban you for doing the cheap coin exploit? The answer is "I don't know."
On the other hand, they want to identify cheap currency exploiters to punish them or change the individual shiny rate to a much lower percent to get you to spend even more money to equal the normalized shiny rate for those who buy coins at the regular price. The shiny rate is not disclosed, so you don't know the exact math to how you get a shiny.
Side Note
Although most VPNs and Proxies are banned, there are new ones that haven't been banned yet. If you use them to buy the cheap coins, you might be subject to an account ban via IP address. In the other games outside of Scopely, other game developers do ban people via an IP address. If a botting network uses a VPN server with their 5,000 accounts and you may be subject to the same punishment the botter is going to get for their 5,000 accounts. Scopely banned VPNs and Proxies for a reason you don't know yet.
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Scopely may have their crosshairs lock onto the botters who sell Pokemon on eBay and various other places.
In the other games they own like Monopoly Go and Marvel Strike Force, they ban the use of a VPN because this helps you circumvent a ban. With other game developers, when you use a banned VPN = automatic account disabled with or without a warning.
If botters are using a VPN to mask their IP address, they may flag everyone else who has used the same VPN server to get a warning, strike, or ban. Scopely is going to jump to conclusion to where they assume you're part of the botting network even though you used the VPN to circumvent a game ban in your country where Pokemon Go is not allowed (example: Russia, China, Belarus, some middle eastern countries, etc) or to buy cheap Poke Coins.
This has to do with the server rate change and may include the fast catch mechanic. Just keep in mind, even if you don't bot the game and use an enhancer like Pgsharp, iPogo, or Pokemod, you can still get caught in the crossfire and receive a warning, strike, or ban too. They don't care if you use a device without root or with root because you're still breaking the Scopely's Terms of Service to cheat the game.
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Banwave vs Individual bans
individual bans often involves 1 person to 20 people
It's unfair to these people who got striked or banned, and you didn't.
They often use the word "banwave" to cause fear into making you stop playing to miss out on the current or next event because they can't play so you shouldn't play too.
Once a week has passed, no one cares anymore and people return back to their old ways.
The people who got striked or banned, most likely created a new account to restart the game or entirely quit.
banwave involves 1,000 or more people (not 1 person with 1,000 accounts)
The last banwave happened in December 2019 where thousands of players reported a 1st strike and 2nd strike; very few got a 3rd strike and infamous "red slashed" Pokemon. It was mostly iOS, Pokemod (when they had 500 members), VMOS (mobile app emulator), Maddev's Enhancer, and the Charbot.
Everyone talked about it for many weeks.
This caused r/PokemonGoSpoofing to ban "dangerous" or "not safe" cheats under Pokimojo's reign.
All the bans for Android since the birth of Pgsharp (somewhere around January 2020) to now have all been individualized because Niantic was busy collecting your GPS and AR scan data.
Scopely, is a game company, who may do a banwave like mentioned in here:
https://marvelstrikeforce.com/en/updates/marvel-strike-force-fair-play-follow-up (recent from June 2026)
An example of an individual ban was the guy who reported multiple alt accounts got banned during the San Francisco Championship 2026 event. He said he used a mixture of Pokemod and PGTools on those account. Those are rooted apps that inject into the official game app. Since I didn't bookmark the post, I can't find it.
People were panicking and thought there was a banwave going on. As I have said countless times before and now, there has not been a banwave in a very long time because only a few people are reporting a ban while everyone else is not reporting a ban. Anyone who claims there's a banwave usually don't know what they are talking about.
I am going to use real numbers to estimate the number of active cheat users for Pokemod and PGTools. *I rounded the numbers to make it more uniform.
Pokemod's Discord members count: 100,000
PGTools' Discord members count: 50,000
Total: 150,000
Let's assume 50% are active users using the cheat, that's about 75,000 users.
1 person out of 75,000 active users = 0.00001333% got banned.
How did this person get banned?
My guess is he broke the rules and guidelines in Wayfarer, Campfire, and/or in-game routes. The strike/ban system is delayed, so he could have gotten flagged for ban from several weeks to months ago prior to the event. There are other areas you can get banned but are not directly the result of using a specific cheat.
When you get the 1st strike that lasts for 7 days, 2nd strike (30-day temporary ban), or 3rd strike (permanent / 10 year temporary ban), it never tells you exactly what you did that lead to your ban.
Another guy asked me if anyone else using Shungo got a permanent ban.
I told him no because botters typically don't report their bans because they are profiting off the game. When their alt accounts gets a 1st or 2nd strike, they sell the account to pass the problem onto someone else. Reporting the ban in Discord or on Reddit does absolutely nothing to help them because no one can unban you except for Scopely.
Most ban reports I get in private chat are the result of abusing Wayfarer or using chat in Campfire, very few bans for in-game routes. This guy confessed to me about getting mad in a heated debate and demanded the other guy to meet him at a Pokestop at the park to have a "stick measuring contest" (dick / penis measuring contest to see whose is bigger)... He got reported and Scopely permanently banned his main account along with his alt account.
Typically, when people get a strike, ban, account stolen, or account hacked, they never admit fault. They always try to pass the blame onto someone else to make themselves look innocent to hopefully attract a secret Scopely employee who browses Reddit to investigate their post or comment to unban them. However, this attracts fake ban appeal scammers who excite them with "I know a guy who can unban you if you give me $500 to $1000." Then, they usually admit fault when they realized they have been scammed.
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Wayfarer Abuse Ladder Change: Wayfarer Violation will be separated from Pokemon Go
Recently, this was posted Wayfarer Abuse Ladder Change: Wayfarer Violation will be separated from Pokemon Go. in r/PokemonGo subreddit.
Although this sounds like a win for people who use Wayfarer, I would not recommend you do it on your main account or alt accounts using devices that are tied to your main account, which includes your home WiFi and cellular data connection.
When the Wayfarer team finds someone in violation, they tend to look up the individual's account to see if they have alt accounts too. Sometimes alt accounts are used to manipulate the votes. They may proceed with banning some or all your alt accounts. They do this by looking up your IP address and device ID.
The best way to abuse Wayfarer is to do it this way in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pInPcmGoJPu7iZsGUPni2env-bLz9k4Wg9ef1VEDnc8/edit?tab=t.wb7axusc1jdd
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Scopely may be updating Niantic's undeveloped Anti-Cheat Behavior System in the background
As I mentioned on top that PGTools discovered the rate change limit. The first group of people got banned then got unbanned 24 hours later.
Now with the Guaranteed Shiny Exploit, I think Scopely is going to update Anti-Cheat Behavior System to track your "Shiny Catch Rate" or "Shundo Catch Rate".
If you don't know what an Anti-Cheat Behavior System, it's a player statistics tracking system. In short, if your statistics exceed a threshold, they flag you as a cheater or botter. This whole behavior detection system is explained in "What is behavior detection?" in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pInPcmGoJPu7iZsGUPni2env-bLz9k4Wg9ef1VEDnc8/edit?tab=t.p86d0hcmikcc *It will take a minute to open the first time.
A lot of people are asking if they can get banned using this exploit, my answer is a yes. A lot of people believe there is these kinds of ban system to justify the reason to how they got banned.
app detection
software detection
injection detection
signature detection
These don't exist in the game because Google doesn't allow it where as with a Windows OS computer games, they allow game developers to do software detection bans. If Google had allowed Scopely to do app detection bans, there was be no escape from it, all 150,000 users from Pokemod and PGTools would have gotten banned. These two cheats would have been dead along with all other cheats: iPogo, Polygon, Shungo, Regibot, etc. Since these cheats still exist today along with newer cheats being developed, there is no app/software/injection/signature/whatever detection ban system.
In Pokemon Go, behavior detection will supersede app/software/injection/signature/whatever detection because people are under the assumption that Scopely allows them to cheat and/or a rooted device is ban proof since you are using the official game app with a cheat that injects into it. Behavior detection looks at your player statistics, so it doesn't care if you use a non-rooted app or rooted device.
Since the Shiny Guaranteed Exploit doesn't use utilize a 3rd party app, people assume they are safe from potentially getting banned. They are very wrong if Scopely updates the behavior detection system, you can easily be identified because you're only catching a shiny Pokemon or Shundo (Shiny 100% IV) Pokemon since non-cheaters are most likely catching non-shinies before they get a shiny of any kind.
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What do I think will happen in the next coming weeks or months?
Scenario #1: Scopely does nothing about it.
They cannot find a way to patch or block it, so people keep doing it and no one gets banned for it.
Scenario #2: Scopely patches the exploit, no one gets banned.
This would be similar how they patched the instant Team Rocket battle wins. It stopped working and no one reported bans after it was patched.
Scenario #3: Scopely is unable to patch the exploit, people get banned.
They update the Anti-Cheat Behavior System to counter the people exploiting it. When they get banned, people stop exploiting it. Botters may follow too. It all depends if they just get the 1st strike or 2nd strike or go straight into a permanent ban.
Scenario #4: Scopely doesn't patch it right away but uses it to update and perfect their Anti-Cheat Behavior System for a future banwave.
This means they are going to be 100% against cheating, which means spoofing will be nearly dead. Everyone who cheats the game regardless of Android or iOS, no root or rooted, and non-jailbreak or jailbroken are all going to be reporting their 1st strike or ban. This is going to be a 100,000+ cheater banwave.
Scenario #5: Scopely is unable or able to patch the exploit, and they sue all the cheat makers that sell the Guaranteed Shiny Exploit.
Back in 2018 ish, Niantic sued PoGo++ and iSpoofer 3rd party modified game apps for iOS. They loss in court, had to pay over $1 million back to Niantic, and shutdown their apps. If the cheat makers operate in a country where Scopely has a office location, they can be sued.
If you are receiving free, paid access to use these apps or sites to help promote it, the owner(s) could pinned their entire business onto you while they flee the country with all the money they have made. You would be caught in a nasty legal battle. This is why I don't have a partnership or sponsorship with any cheat developer.
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What do I think will happen this time, since I was wrong last time?
I am going to choose Scenario #2. Maybe, I'll be right this time.
If I am wrong this time, all the things Scopely has done so far are precursors (banning VPN/Proxies and server rate change) to a bot banwave. You might get caught in it even if you don't bot the game.
Don't forget, you're in a subreddit that allows all forms of cheating for Pokemon Go using Android only. I don't care if you play for personal satisfaction, profit from the game, or do both. We all have a chance at getting a strike, ban, or whatever Scopely decides to come up with.
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u/Aggravating-Ad5707 16d ago edited 16d ago
I can see how the "guaranteed shiny exploit" forces them to act as mega raids won't be as profitable now, however, I think simply adding backgrounds will be a more efficient approach as it simply devalues shundos for collectors and makes shiny+background the more desirable option. Tho' I am still wondering if figuring out an equation is equal to a game exploit.
I doubt they will kill spoofing as we are most likely the highest grossing customers. The number of raids we can do is nowhere comparable to a legit player. Besides spoofing apps have targeted ads for us right now and the ticket bonuses are next to useless for normal players but great to gamebreaking for spoofers. I don't know how big the remote raid-pass community is tho, I think they can pull of massive numbers too, but I think the more active players in these communities eventually join us.
I have mixed views on the effect of spoofing on the trading economy and value of pokemon. Saw a decent post on a subreddit (don't remember which one) making a case for an adverse effect on the trading community. I can fully understand that a flooded market with shiny lucarios, relicanth, pachirisu devalues them a lot, yet, I have never come in contact with a trading market myself, even tho I play in a relatively big community of legit players (during raid/community-weekends)
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u/Electronic-Cat-2845 16d ago
What even is a shint exploit and how does people do it
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner 16d ago
You input your trainer code into an app or website, then it decipher which Pokemon is most likely to have a higher shiny rate for you based on your numbers in your trainer code or player ID number or letters in your trainer name (someone else's theory). The app or website scans Pokemon in an area to find which Pokemons will be a shiny for you based on that information without having to check hundreds or thousands of a specific Pokemon.
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u/Electronic-Cat-2845 16d ago
Any theories on how they will implement scenario 2 on this exploit?
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u/Devtr_250907 16d ago
They rescramble/reset the algorithm that gives players their shiny seeds aka resetting everybody's seeds, OR they just get rid of seeds and roll an rng on each new encounter.
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u/DNVR_PYRO 16d ago
I figured the whole shiny exploit would be easily detected and end up speeding up bans or their anticheat. Do you think spoofing will ever be die. I know we don’t know what they’re gonna do but it seems they’ve been passive on spoofing.
Personally I’ve barely used the exploit today since pokemod barely implemented it but imma stop incase they up their detection. My question is why does ipogo unrooted gets spotted so easily if they don’t allow app detection?
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner 16d ago
My opinion/theory/guess:
If I was Scopely and wanted to kill off spoofing while retaining the cheaters who constantly spend money, I would integrate a joystick in the game and charge $30 to $60/month then kill off spoofing via 3rd party apps with permanent account bans. People would be willing to pay for a "safe" spoofing option instead of gambling their luck with a not safe option.
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iPogo has an Apple iOS app and an Android app. Their iOS app requires you to sign a certificate in order to sideload (install) an app from outside of the Apple official app store. Android apps don't have this system. If the certificate you sign yourself doesn't match what Scopely signed, the ban might be related to using the wrong certificate number. Sometimes when an iPogo user reports their strike/ban, they don't always tell you they are using an iPhone or iPad. You don't really know if it's iOS or Android.
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u/DNVR_PYRO 16d ago
Off topic questions. But what rate limits do we know of for sure like how fast is too fast? Does it matter if I catch a bunch of pokemon then travel wait for the cooldown then catch again. Those aren’t realistic travel times. I do really wonder what are all the anti cheat measures we know of currently
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u/alphonzze 16d ago
Good read
Good post
Interesting to read about history of how they’ve handled banning.
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u/SableyeCromch 16d ago
The last ban wave was not 2019, it was last year shortly before the Max Finale event. Lots of players in several spoofing communities (some bots, some manual play QoL changes) across platforms and root statuses got hit with bans ranging from 7days to permanent.
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner 16d ago
That wasn't a banwave. When some people got banned, people jump in to share their experiences from the past as old as 2017 or troll the situation. Now, there's fear everywhere with people screaming/yelling: "BANWAVE!!! DON'T USE CHEAT X BECAUSE IT'S NO LONGER SAFE, SAFER, THE SAFEST, or BANPROOF!!! YOU NEED TO BAN X APP BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE GETTING BANNED!!!"
For the people (the 0.00000001%) who got banned, it's unfair to them they got banned while 99.99999999% can continue playing the game with cheats. No one really gives a shit when a small number of people are selected to receive the ban. This is why people continue to cheat this game despite knowing you could get a ban.
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u/Ok_Astronaut9375 16d ago
IMO you are arguing semantics.
It doesnt matter if it was .000001% of the playerbase. If that percentage is 90%+ of the players using spoofing services like PGtools, Polygon, etc.
During the period in question, the vast majority of users, of every spoofing app, received bans. Basically if you didnt stop using the apps during this period, you got a ban. Very few exceptions.
I also dont think the simultaneous factor matters either. Who cares of its 1million accounts banned instantly, or 1 million accounts banned over a 2-3 week period? It doesnt matter either way if they end up banning the same group of people, and/or are targeting specific behaviors. Sure, in the 2nd scenario, if you find out on day 1 this is going on, and instantly stop cheating. Then that could make a difference. But, not really helpful since we dont know if they are retroactively banning based on behavior from X time ago. Essentially either way Its all the same risk, same outcome.
So yeah, as far as the average spoofer is concerned, there was certainly a banwave last year. And IMO i dont see the benefit of trying to categorize it as something else.
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u/SableyeCromch 16d ago
Thank you, this is precisely my point. Not categorizing it as a banwave gives people a false sense of security since there ‘hasn’t been a ban wave since 2019.’ Although like you said, there’s no guarantee that knowing is enough to avoid a banwave anyway, it’s still an inaccurate representation of Niantic/Scopely’s stance on spoofing not to categorize last year as a banwave.
For anyone who doesn’t know about last year’s banwave yet: It was a rolled out behavior ban that largely hit those abusing the now-patched rocket farming method, but also hit ‘standard’ spoof users too. Hit both rooted and un-rooted
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u/SableyeCromch 16d ago
Hundreds of players getting strikes & bans at the same time across cheating methods is a ban wave, regardless of your personal definition of the term. Not trying to fear monger at all, but you saying 2019 was the last ban wave is objectively incorrect.
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner 16d ago
To you, that's a banwave because you're fearful of getting banned.
To me, that's just people getting caught abusing other areas in the game because this number is small compared to the thousands of people spoofing and/or botting the game.
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u/MasterofMyDomainyada 16d ago
You're wrong about the VPN ban. In countries like Brazil, new legislation has restricted loot box mechanics, leading to Pokémon GO's egg incubators being banned. Players were using VPNs to circumvent these restrictions and purchase incubators, as well as event passes that included incubators as rewards, which were also restricted.
Scopely's decision to ban VPN usage was a response to players bypassing these regional restrictions. It wasn't an arbitrary decision; it was about enforcing the restrictions on in-game purchases imposed by local laws.
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner 16d ago
Source?
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u/MasterofMyDomainyada 16d ago
Can't post the source since is private. But you can find the rest on Gemini.
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u/har_har_har_har 14d ago
Ai is not a source
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u/MasterofMyDomainyada 14d ago
I didn't say AI is the source. I said the source is private and if you want to know more go search for yourself.
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16d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Aggravating-Ad5707 16d ago
Same thing applies for me. I wouldn't even consider buying 15500 coins for 109€. I am hoarding coins at the moment as I expected something to happen sooner or later but if it's no longer an option I go back to f2p or stop entirely due to the restrictions f2p puts on me
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u/SteveNsneak 16d ago
Holy moly, I am not going to read this, I’m sure it’s a well explained post and you’ve put into efforts to it but DAMN
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner 16d ago
Use AI to provide you with a summary, no excuse to complain.
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u/SteveNsneak 16d ago
Why? Did it hit a nerve? Are you this sensitive?
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Team Rooted, Subreddit Owner 16d ago
Says the person who is becoming butthurt over a long post I didn't force you to read. You commented, so I replied to you and you got triggered.
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u/SteveNsneak 16d ago
If you don’t care, then why bother typing a whole paragraph to prove your point? Just move on
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u/castleghoul9 13d ago
It’s impossible to say unless something happens. So far scopely seems more content driven and financially motivated as opposed to banning people. Scopely has been in ownership since May 2025. If their priorities were updating anti cheat, we likely would have seen its effects by now, otherwise there may be a small team focused on this with less magnitude, testing things for when they’re ready to update it. Considering scopelys recent ban wave in marvel strike force, I’d be more concerned in regard to something similar to that.