How To Catch Smeargle in Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go’s latest update has added Smeargle, the Generation 2 Pokemon with a paintbrush for a tail, to the game. Catching him however is unlike anything we’ve seen in the game before: You have to use an item in the game that fans previously thought was just for show. With this handy guide you’ll have all the information you’ll need to catch this Picasso of Pokemon in no time. 

Catching Smeargle in a (Pokemon) Snap

You may have noticed Niantic making a big deal out of the new Camera item in the game, which allows us to take AR pictures of our Pokemon whenever we want. Cool, sure, but it’s not something that will be essential to our Pokemon Go experience, right? Well if we want to add Smeargle to our Pokedex, that’s no longer the case.

See, Smeargle sometimes photobombs pictures taken in AR. That’s right, Pokemon Go has mechanized photobombing in order to catch a rare Gen 2 Pokemon. It happens randomly, you might only need one photo or you’ll need forty, but eventually you’ll see something looking like this:

Once you see Smeargle’s head pop out of one of the pictures, exit back to the main world map. The elusive Pokemon will immediately appear and can be caught normally. That’s not all of Smeargle’s unique qualities, though, as his moveset is so vast it’s hard to keep track.

Sketching The Way To Victory

Back in the core Pokemon games Smeargle had a move called Sketch, where he would permanently copy a move from any Pokemon in battle and use it as his own. That’s a difficult mechanic to bring over to the mobile world, however Niantic figured out an ingenious way to do it: Smeargle will copy the moves of the Pokemon he photobombed. Not only will he steal the spotlight from a Pokemon, he’ll steal its battle moves too. We like this guy already.

Oh,and those copied moves include Legacy moves, but won’t include a Ditto’s transform. Instead Smeargle will copy the moves of whoever that Ditto last copied, even if it’s the Pokemon it was posing as when found in the wild.

One more thing: Smeargle is not a guaranteed catch when he appears, this isn’t a Field Research after all, so make sure you’re prepared. Also, he’ll only photobomb once a day, so if you miss catching him you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Now go get yourself some Smeargle!

For more on Pokemon, check out our coverage on the recently announced 2019 Pokemon World Championships.