Medals



Medals are achievements Trainers earn for reaching certain milestones such as distance walked, PokéStops visited, and Pokémon caught. A Trainer's medals are shown on their profile page.

Each medal has three levels: bronze, silver, and gold. A fourth level, platinum, will be added with the release of GO Beyond. Some medals award Trainers with extra bonuses when they are earned, such as an increased chance of successfully catching certain Pokémon types or unlocking wardrobe pieces for purchase.

When the player earns a medal, an animated pop-up displays in the Map View, similar to the one when a Trainer levels up.

Most of the medals without any progress are hidden until there's any progress for achieving bronze level of such medals. Some of them are displayed as the silhouette of corresponding medal, even without any progress on them, these medals are specifically for general milestones:
 * Jogger
 * Collector
 * Scientist
 * Breeder
 * Backpacker
 * Battle Girl
 * Ace Trainer
 * Kanto
 * Johto
 * Hoenn
 * Best Buddy

After achieving platinum level of each medal the statistics of required task for such medal are still kept and can be seen in medal's detail view in gold-level medal tab.

Medals levels
Medals have three different levels that in order to be achieved, require various values for a main task of certain medal.

''Medal images used above are original graphics used for medals for catching Pokémon of specific-type. After game update to version 0.41.2, they were changed to have icons of corresponding type, therefore these images became unused in the game.''

List of medals
Medals have to kinds the ones for the various general tasks and milestones in gameplay and the others for catching specific-type Pokémon.

General medals
First section with medals on Trainer profile page shows all the currently owned medals for various milestones of general actions in the game. They can be also related to combat, number of each region Pokédex entries and catching specific Pokémon.

Specific-type Pokémon medals
Besides the general medals for certain milestones, there are also medals for catching specific types of Pokémon. These medals share the same number of catches for each level:
 * Trainers must catch 10 of a type for that type's bronze medal,
 * Trainers must catch 50 of a type for that type's silver medal,
 * Trainers must catch 200 of a type for that type's gold medal, and
 * Trainers must catch 2,500 of a type for that type's platinum medal.

Bronze, silver, and gold specific-type Pokémon medals increase the capture rate of Pokémon with that type by 10%, 20%, and 30%, respectively. The bonus for the platinum medals is not yet known.

Exclusive medals
These medals are exclusive and were only obtainable during their event. There are exclusive medals for Ticketed Special Researches, including: These medals are inscribed with a 4 digit month-year label.
 * A Colossal Discovery
 * A Drive to Investigate
 * Investigating Illusions

Rewards
For acquiring certain medals, mainly specific-type Pokémon related medals, there are some bonus rewards on each achieved level of such medal.

Catch bonus
Medals for catching specific-type Pokémon grant trainers having them with special catch bonus that highers capture rate of all Pokémon of respective type when it is being captured in wild.
 * +1 catch bonus for Bronze Medal.png bronze-level medal,
 * +1 catch bonus for Silver Medal.png silver-level medal that gives in total +2 catch bonus
 * and +1 catch bonus for Gold Medal.png gold-level medal that finally gives in total +3 catch bonus.

This counts only for capturing Pokémon with type corresponding to the medal. (for instance the Dragon Tamer medal grants a bonus for catching  Dragon-type Pokémon ). If a Pokémon has two types, the game will average the catch bonus trainer has for those two types.

Avatar items
Twelve medals for general actions grant trainers having them with special avatar items themed for each name of medal. These medals are:
 * Jogger,
 * Battle Girl,
 * Fisher,
 * Gym Leader,
 * Pikachu Fan,
 * Ace Trainer,
 * Great League Veteran,
 * Ultra League Veteran,
 * Master League Veteran,
 * Kanto,
 * Johto
 * and Ultra Hero.

Achieving higher tier of each medal unlocks more purchasable clothing for trainers.

Jogger and Fisher unlock only-male avatar clothes when Battle Girl unlocks only-female avatar clothes, therefore depending on which gender of avatar is currently chosen these wardrobe pieces are displayed in rewards section of medal in its detail view. Thus, if avatar is male there are no rewards for Battle Girl medal and if avatar is female there are no displayed rewards for Fisher nor Jogger medals.

Premier Balls
Tiers of Purifier and Hero medals count towards the number of bonus Premier Balls given in Shadow Pokémon rescue mission.

Trivia

 * The Ace Trainer medal was originally obtainable by training Pokémon in team-owned Gyms. Training was removed during the Gym rework. This medal was made available again when Trainer Battles were introduced.
 * The medal was still shown in game, keeping the progress when it was unavailable.
 * Before the introduction of Team GO Rocket Leaders, the Hero medal description said "Defeat Team GO Rocket Grunts".
 * Most of medals are named after Trainer Classes from the main game series.
 * Fisher and Rail Staff were previously called Fisherman and Depot Agent. The names were updated in mid-January 2020 corresponding to changes in Pokémon Sword and Shield.