The Mew Trick

After receiving numerous reports on this Mew-catching method (and trying it myself), it seems that this technique is 100% legitimate. So far, the most concise and descriptive explanation of how to do this can be found at Mew's Hangout. Here goes:

Special thanks to dc02forward, dark_skitty, AnimalCrossing64, White_Lightning, Toad, doggiegirl30, Tyler Sterdan, & terateller for the information about this!

There is an alternate way to get mew a lot faster in R/B. You can get it as soon as you get to Cerulean City. First, you have to catch an Abra. Like before, battle all trainers EXCEPT the one with the slowpoke, AND the one just to the left of the Nugget Bridge in the grass. Then, make sure you have been to the Cerulean Pokemon Centre before. Next, like before, walk a few steps in front of the trainer in the grass, then press start quickly before he battles you. Then go to Abra and use teleport. You should be infront of the Cerulean Pokemon Centre. Your start button shouldn't be working. Now, go to the trainer with the slowpoke and defeat him. Your start button should now work. Now teleport back to Cerulean. Go to Nugget Brudge. The first step you take should bring up the main menu. Press B and you will encounter Mew.

Catch an Abra north of Cerulean City and put Abra in the Party and head back north of Cerulean. Don't battle the trainer on the other side of the lake/river from the nugget bridge. Save the game at the upper-left corner of the lake and step one tile area and quickly press the start button to make start menu to appear. Select Abra from the Pokemon menu and teleport back to the Cerulean City Pokemon Center. The trainer will show a punctuation mark before teleporting. Go inside the Cerulean GYM and battle the swimmer near the entrance. Defeat the trainer and head out of the GYM and head north to see the menu pop up. Press B and a wild Mew will appear.

The Extended Mew Trick
(How to catch any Pokemon in the game, including Glitches)
Also called Ditto Trick or Gambler Trick. Not to be confused with the "Cooltrainer Ditto/Cool Ditto" Trick.

"On your site, you have posted information about how to obtain a mew.
This is actually part of a larger glitch WHICH WILL ALLOW YOU TO CATCH ANY POKEMON IN THE GAME.

Ok here is the glitch (restarting your game is not necessary, contary to common belief) if you are trying for mew get a pkmn with a special stat
of 21 in your party (this will make sense later)

1. Find a trainer who, like the gambler, sees you in the same step that he is scrolled onto the screen. This means that when he is offscreen, and
you step towards him so he becomes onscreen, he sees you. SAVE.

2. Pause before he sees you and fly away like always. If the area is indoors you can use dig, but ensure that the last pokemon center you used is in the area that you would fly to.

8. DO NOT BATTLE ANYTHING OR ANYONE ELSE AFTER THE DITTO. Its ok to fight see other pokemon BEFORE the ditto, but ensure that the ditto was the last pokemon you fought with.

9. Return to the area where you battled flew away from that first trainer. If the area had multiple floors, ensure that you are on the same floor.

In order to fight pokemon other than mew with this trick, replace the pokemon with the special of 21 with a pokemon with a different special.

A full list of what pokemon appears with which special can be found at TR Rose's Hex List

Mew Trick Stories

Team Rocket Rose says:

7/28/04:

I finally did this trick, and it worked great! It took me a few tries to hit Start before the Gambler saw me, but I did get the hang of it. The Mew that appeared looked perfectly normal - no glitches or anything. Mew's Pokedex entry was normal. I put Mew first in my party, and sent it into battle (of course switching it out right away) - no problems with that, and Mew is now level 12. Only one strange thing happened - once, when I was checking Mew's stats, there was no cry. But the next time I checked Mew's stats, everything was fine. I'm sure it was just a tiny quirk. I traded this Mew to my Pokemon Blue version (using Pokemon Stadium 2 - there are fewer problems that way), then traded back. No problems there either.

After beating the Slowpoke Youngster and getting Mew, I decided to try for other rare Pokemon. I flew back to Cerulean, and crossed Nugget Bridge. There was another Youngster I hadn't battled (actually, the one right before the Mew Youngster) because I didn't want to risk messing up the trick. So I battled him, and flew back to Lavender. Oddly enough, I met a level 7 Nidoqueen! How is that possible? It was just like the baby Nidoqueens in the Mewtwo Returns special!

The next time, I went into Pokemon Tower in Lavender (I noticed that the trick only works for me if I battle a trainer... if I battle a wild Pokemon, my Start button will NOT work, even if I encounter unbattled trainers!) It was my first time inside the Tower, so I fought Gary. I left the Tower, but my
Start button wouldn't work. I headed back to Rt. 8 and a message popped up instead of my Start menu! Here's what it said:

You look good at Pokemon, but how's your chem?

Then a Machoke appeared (level 10). I did the trick again - but this time Machoke was at level 8! Creepiness!

I've also found level 7 Golem, Parasect, Tangela, and Magneton!

ADDITIONALLY: the 2nd Fisherman south of Lavender Town will give you Lv. 7 MissingNo. This MissingNo has 2 Water Guns and 1 Sky Attack. Mine looked like 'M, but that might be due to my character's name. It can duplicate your 6th held item (actually, if you move your items around during battle - like moving a Rare Candy to position 6 on your first turn - you will get BOTH items duplicated). And it messes up the on-screen graphics (glitched trainers and backwards PKMN). But it will NOT randomly grow levels like the level 100+ MissingNos.

8/6/04:

I looked around gamefaqs as suggested by Dark Link, and I found a numerical (by Pokemon #1-151) list of which special stat creates which Pokemon. But I noticed something odd - I saw numbers as high as the 190s! Obviously, since there are only 151 Pokemon, something must be wrong. So I organized that list by hex number. You can view that list here: Hex Numbers. Notice the blank spaces? Maybe these were Pokemon that were deleted before the game was released. These must be the spaces where MissingNo hides out! I'm going to test this using the above method (using Ditto) and see if MissingNo appears. Has anyone out there determined appearance of 'M/MissingNo based on name, or the Ditto trick for any of the blank spaces? Email [email protected] if you have any info.

Another theory/idea - notice the strange numbering order? I think that this is the order in which the different Pokemon were created! I remember reading an article about Pokemon once that had "trivia" - for example, Rhydon was the first Pokemon ever made (not Pikachu!) Notice that Rhydon is number 1 in the list? Also, Pokemon who were specifically designed to look like one another (The Eeveelutions, the 3 Legendary Birds, the Hitmons, the Bug evolutions) are listed together. Something interesting though - many evolution Pokemon who look very different from the smaller forms (Dragonite, Gyarados, Gengar) are early on the list, and far away in number from their smaller forms - makes me think these bigger ones were designed first, but the designers thought they were too powerful on their own. Certain Pokemon in evolution families are quite far from their other forms in the list (Kadabra is #80, but Abra and Alakazam are #148-149. Also, Arcanine is right next to Mew! Perhaps he WAS supposed to be a Legendary?

9/24/04:

Playing through LeafGreen, I reached Lavender Town, anxious to try the Mew trick. It seems that the Game Freak programmers got wind of this trick and made sure it wouldn't be duplicated. The 3 trainers to initiate this trick (Gambler/Super Nerd west of Lavender or 2nd Fisherman south of Lavender) have been changed - the Gambler is in a different spot (to the right of the underground path) and won't get the ! over his head unless you walk right up to him (perhaps he's losing his vision?); the Super Nerd has a lowered range of sight (you have to get within 2-3 steps for him to see you); the Fisherman now looks left or right only. Also, the Slowpoke Youngster (who sets off Mew) no longer faces up. He now spins around, and it took me 20 minutes of restarting my game to get around him.

I've also discovered the source of those odd messages that sometimes pop up in R/B before you encounter your Pokemon using the Mew trick - the words that appear are things said by trainers in that area! Of the 4 trainers who are standing around in a line (before the Gambler), one is a Lass with 3 Meowths who says "Meowth is so cute. Meow meow meow." Another is a Super Nerd who says "School is fun, but so is Pokemon!" The final odd message comes from the other Super Nerd (who could start the trick). His full message is "You look good at Pokemon, but how's your chemistry grade?" Apparently my game just cut him off at "chem".

"Some people have found other pokemon at L7 when they do it, such as Gengar, Machamp, Kadabra, Golem, Hitmonlee, and Hitmonchan. If you try it and get something else at L7, you did it right, your game just gave you something else. If you try it again, you might get a Mew, but I don't know because I don't have a R,B, or Y version."

"I restarted my game and tried it. It works. I also am getting more Pokemon with it. The channelers DO give you a level 7 Missingno. from it. I also got level 7 Tangela, Tentacool, Psyduck, Electabuzz, Arcanine, Mr. Mime, Hitmonchan, and Pinsir! I also got strangely level 7 Gengar and Machoke! Stranger still, when I was getting the Machoke, Instead of the start menu popping up, it talked to me! it said somthing like, "Sure you're powerful, but how's your (Somthing or other, I cant remember)" Weird and weirder!"

"I was reading your Tales From the Glitch and I decided to try the "supposedly confirmed" Get Mew trick. To my surprise, it actually worked, even though the picture of Mew was slightly glitched. But... this Mew was not all it seemed. When I logged on to its Stats, I found that whereas normal Mews usually have Type 1/ Psychic, mine had Type 1/ Psychic and Type 2/ DRAGON!!!! But I was under the impression that Mew was a CAT, not a Dragon. still, it had pretty good Stats for a Level 7 Pokémon.

Now, I have one teeny warning about Mew; If you're going to trade it, BE CAREFUL. I traded it to my sister's Yellow game and when she looked at it's Stats they had all changed.

1. It's picture was even more glitched up than before,
2. The Stats that had been relitavely strong were now really weak,
3. Type 2 had changed from Type 2/ Dragon to Type 2/ GHOST!!!!!!!! Did my Mew DIE during the trade or something?!?!?!

Anyway, she traded it back (It's Stats even more weirder). I decided to leave it for a while to see if it was the trade that had caused the strange behaviour.While I was playing my Blue Game my sister came into my room and showed me her Yellow game. My jaw literally hit the floor when I saw that the game was totally screwed!! the Pokédex enrty of "Mew" was no more than a bunch of pixels repeated over and over, as was her HoF records!! But she hadn't tried the "Missingno. on Yellow" trick yet!!! I told her she'd just have to start again (anyway, she hadn't gotten very far...).

After an hour or so, I took out my Mew again and brought it into a normal battle. At the beginning of the battle, the "Missingno. Effects" (as I call them) started to take place! All the graphics were screwed up... And (this part is SO weird) after the battle, Mew tried to evolve into Mew, but it showed MISSINGNO. evolving into Mew!!!!!! I pressed B and still ended up with Mew. And (guess what?) its Stats had changed AGAIN!!!!! It was as if my Mew was actually Missingno. in disguise! Which leads me to my conclusion:

'M might be the beta test Pokémon used to program the game, but Missingno. actually MIGHT be the result of Nintendo and GAMEFREAK taking Mew out of the US Game. Or WAS it the trade? OR was it that particular Mew? OR was it my GAME? All I know is I won't be able to figure this one out for a long time yet!"

"There are two alternative ways to enter Route 8 and trigger Mew after beating the Youngster. If you have access to Saffron City, you can fly there and go through the eastern city gate. Also, you can fly to Celadon City, head east to Route 7, enter the Underground Path, and emerge back in front of the Gambler.

"Finally, the Route 8 Gambler isn't the only trainer that can initiate the trick. The Super Nerd just west of him can also do it, as can the second Fisherman you meet when heading south from Lavender on Route 12. There are numerous others; basically, any trainer who is scrolled onto the screen by the same step that puts you in their vision range will work. However, remember that the final battle with Mew will only be triggered by returning to whatever route that trainer is in, which is not necessarily Route 8."

"i tried out the steps to get a mew like you had listed, and it worked on my red. i used mew's metronome move once and mew used a move called waterfall, which looked like a combination of hydro pump and dig, kind of. it didn't do a whole lot of damage, but i've never seen the move before in red blue or yellow. also, using the steps to get mew, only fighting different trainers, i've found myself face to face with missingno more then once in lavender town.

Using the mew glitch I was trying to find a missingno on my pokemon yellow. Using the gambler and giovanni in the gym I went to the route the gambler was on and a trainer appeared. She was a lass and the things she said were "Meowth is so cute.Meow Meow meow."She had three lv27 meowths .I dont recall ever seeing this trainer in my game.After defeating her is when I got freaked out .She battled me again but when she said something it was a bunch of pixels and a cry of meowth. Defeating her once again i went further down the route to find myself not being able to talk use the start button and every time i took a step a cry would happen .My game started to freeze for a couple of seconds and then i started hearing a different theme song .I then heard the theme of when you win a battle .Please tell me if you ever heard something like this. Maybe the different theme was from the jp version.

I got Mew using the method (twice actually) and it glitched my game, learned the move Cooltrainer, and froxe it. It also resisted capture once. It wasn't just normal for me.

On one of the MissingNo categories, it said that MissingNo sometimes takes the form of the last Pokemon used yo battle it. Well, I tried the Mew glitch earlier this morning on my Yellow version, and I first used Butterfree and then Charmander. When I was battling it, it looked like Mew, a pink, catlike creature. However, just now, I was looking at the six pokemon I had with me. The Pokemon in the last slot, Mew, said the word "Mew" but the image next to it was that of Charmander!

First, you need a Abra. You must not have Battled the Trainer in the grass beside Nugget Bridge and the trainer in the grass going to Vermilion with the Lv. 20 Butterfreeand you need to go tho the Cerulean Pokemon Center Before you start . It is like the Quick Mew trick. You need to take a step toward the trainer in the grass beside Nugget Bridge and quickly press start then use Abra to teleport to the Pokemon Center then go down the underground path. When you come out follow the path past the two people talking to each other and when the path goes down the trainer with the Lv:20 Butterfree will challenge you (the Butterfree is a pain in the butt!!) Beat him and teleport to the Pokemon Center walk up to Nugget Bridge and keep walking up untill the menu comes up .Press B and You will be attacked by a Lv:7 Chansey!!! ( Do I Have To Tell You To CATCH IT ?????) If You Don't Beleve me try it Your self

P.S. The Quick Mew Trick is Geting a Abra Doing that thing with the trainer in the grass Beside Nugget Bridge Teleporting to the Pokemon Center battling the Slowpoke Trainer (let Him walk to you or the game will crash) Beat him teleport to the P.C. Walk up the bridge and the menu will pop up. Press B and you will Be attacked by a Lv:7 Mew

My friend lets me borrow his blue verson so I can help him get the mew code pokemon, like Syther or Electabuzz in the blue verson. Well, one time, I came across a Gengar. Luckly, I had used a MissingNo. earlier to copy my great balls and I had Buttercup, a Butterfree who knows Sleep Powder. I caught him, and caught a Electabuzz later on. I then decided to go to the Game Corner and beat that for him. Well, I used the mew cheat with the Rocket people (I wish I could join them :) ). Well, when I got to where Giovonni was sussposed to be, he wasn't there! Weird... So, now I am only able to get 6 badges now, since the Rocket guy won't move in front of Sabrina's gym. I think the game surmises that since I have a Genger, I have a Sliph Scope. I had to restart the game. Luckly, my friend didn't get mad at me. So, if you are going to do the code, battle the game corner first.

Also, if you battle the person in the water in Misty's gym during the mew code, he also has a Mew. Didn't see that on the website; just wanted to tell everyone.

hi, i was reading your info, and i thought i'd tell you about a glitch. while i was using the mew trick, (without the ditto part) the game froze for a min., and i only saw it for a second, but i saw an hpoke blob, but it had mewtwo's head! then the game froze.

i know of a glitch pokemon that i dont think anyones ever heard before. Glitchamp, the glitchy machamp.
MY MEW FOUND A GLITCH! Here is a little bit about it.
Name: Glitchamp (glitch machamp)
Discovered by Pixel perfect. (more like battled by a freaked-out pixel)
Moves: Hydro pump (thats all i know. I shut of da power after that)
Victims: Abby (poor abra!)
Level: 60-something
Hp: INFINITE! (screams like a maniac) somebody help us!
Trainer: Gambler, just to the east of, i think vermillion.
Version: Blue
How to find: Do the teleport mew glitch. Train your Mew, then feed it an HP up. Go to the east of vermillion city. (I dont know if this triggers it or not, but i had an abra in the front of my party) battle that gambler who says "combat! i live for it!" There ya go. you have a glitch.
That glitch pokemon had infinite Hp. so much that the bar practically wrapped around the screen. iot came down to about the machamp's feet. Then, it used HYDRO PUMP on my poor, uinprepared abra! I shut off the power, and everything was fine when I finally got over it and played blue agian.

OK, well, my Mewtwo had 248 Special, so i did the Mew trick with it. I fought this really freaky guy! When the battle commenced the sound channels went off one by one, and he sent out a Lv.146 Charizard that had an HP bar that filled up two lines. When i asked my Mewtwo to fight, its moves were Explosion, Explosion, Barrier, and Explosion! I used Explosion, and my game screwed up.

I wanted to see what happens if I lost the battle while doing the Mew Glitch. I used the nearest Rocket Grunt to the door in the Game Corner as my subject. I beat him and walked out of Lavender and encountered a lv 7 Pinsir. Whoopdeedoo... I reset without saving.
Then I went out and Master Balled a lv 3 Pidgey, taught it fly and deposited my other Pokemon. I did the Mew Glitch using the same subject and got another Pinsir (well, the same one actually). Immediately jumping to conclusions I assumed that you could get multiple Mews from the same game, just lose to the Youngster.

After around half an hour I decided to confirm my theory. I think that this was where things started to go wrong. I did the Gambler thing and lost to the Grunt again, but he didn't result in any lv 7 Pokemon. I tried again, and discovered that My Gambler would no longer want to battle me, so I could no longer use him for the Glitch! The game thought I had battled him for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with losing... Thankfully, the guy near the Gambler still worked, so I can continue to find strange lv 7 Pokemon.

I just discovered a new alternative trainer to use, instead of the youngster north of nugget bridge.

Well. First, go east of Saffron (or west of Lav., for that matter) and fly away from the gambler. Like before, [when you did the mew trick] the start menu will not work. Now. Go east of Vermilion, passing the diglett cave, and in the grass patch, where there are loads of trainers here. See that gambler up north, in the grass? Battle him. If you found the correct trainer, you will know, ebcause I vaguely remember a vulpix. I assume he uses fire-type. Anyway. After you win, go to Lav. Town, and go west. The start menu will pop up. Close it. Violá! A pokemon attacks! When I did this, I kept on having this bad feeling that a missingno would appear... and a lv. 7 missingno does appear. After the battle, my jaws dropped. literally. my chacter was all over the screen, and there were glitch blocks everywhere! I shutted my game off, and I'm still too scared to turn it back on, to check if my game is still glitchy.

Do not use the missingno trick if you don't want your game to end up glitched. This missingno is crucial to the cinnabar one---the cinnabar one wil not mess your graphics up. This one does though. so be careful.

And you can use the gambler east of vermilion, if that fisherman, or channeler, will not trigger (I tried this with the channeler. I got a lv. 7 magenton) the missingno sighting, or if you have already fought them.

I just found something REALLY creepy. In my yellow version, I wanted to use the Mew trick, but on someone else. I flew away from the gambler. Pretty normal. I fought the first trainer facing the left (or was it right..) in the gym where you get to choose Hitmonchan/Hitmonlee. I lost to the guy, and I got sent back to Lavender Town. Ok, THIS is where it get weird. I went to go to the gambler again. Instead of a menu popping up, a text at the bottom said: "School is fun, but so is pokemon!" And there was no trainer. I fought him, then, it said: -glitch- pokeball sign -glitch- would like to battle!" Ok, weird. I fought him like a normal trainer. THEN this is the truely weird part. The screen froze for a minute. Then the music kept sounding like beeps and a pikachu when you view its status. Evertime I moved, it would pause, then move, pause, move. Then, It sounded like when you get/catch something, and then a Pidgeot (sp). Then a Pikachu again. I couldn't talk to anyone. People kept disappearing, then finally the whole game crashed, and the screen went black. I thought it was funny.

Hi, I'm Jazz and I just wanted to list some new things I found out about the mew glicth on yellow.

1. While trying to find all of the mew glicth trainers other than the gambler, i found out why a message box sometimes pops up. This happens when you talk to someone after you beat the second trainer. It will be the the last thing said by the last trainer you beat in the glicth trainer's area.

2. I wondered what would happen if you hadn't beat anyone in the glicth trainer's area. I went to the glicth trainer near the underground path by vermillion city and teleported away back to cerulean city. I then beat the glicth trainer past nugget bridge(the only person I didn't kill there) then walked back through the robbed house and talked to the guy crying about his lost TM. Then I went back through the underground path. As soon as I got out, a message came up saying "This is a matter of love, leave me alone!" or something like that, and I was pulled BACKWARDS back into the underground path where I started to battle a male junior trainer with one weepinbell. After that, I went outside again and was pulled inside AGAIN and was attacked by a lvl 221 dewgong!!! Ihad to run since I was way to early in the game to fight or catch it.

3. I tried again without talking to anyone and came across a normal lvl 7 ryhorn. Boring.

4. I tried talking to someone else and the message on the sign came up, then the same ryhorn.

5. I tried it the same way I did the first time to make sure it wasn't random and fought the same junior trainer. The weird thing was, instead of the lvl 221 dewgong, I fought the same trainer AGAIN. Except after I beat him instead of him saying something before he gave me the money, I heard a nidoran growl then battle start music. after it was really over, everything seemed fine until I went outside. when I tried to walk, I would pause after every step. I couldn't talk to pickachu, and no one would walkup to me. when I walked towards the 2 trainers talking to each other, I would get stuck and the music became a mix of pokemon growls and city and route music. One time it was a strange melody I've never heard on the game before. I freaked and turned off the game.

6. As if I didn't learn my lesson, I tried it again but it always did what it did last time. I guess I'll never see that lvl 221 dewgong again....

7. I also found that when you do the mew glicth and don't fight anyone that no one in the glicth trainer's area will fight you until you finish the glicth. I used this to sneak past all of the trainers to get into vermillion city early :P

"I tried to combine just the Mew Trick and GlitchCity, attacking the 1st Fisherman South of Lavender. I don't know whether it was a result of the tricks I was doing, but even though I had no 'M' or Missingno in my party, the battle sprites were backwards and glitched."

"Sometime in the last couple of days, the game decided that it wouldn't make anyone on the route west of Lavender walk up to me, so no more Super Nerd. The Gambler stopped working ages ago, even though I never did battle him. An interesting thing to note though, is that, though no one will walk up to you, you can still talk to and battle the people on that route. The Super Nerd stops his little speech at chem? now. Thankfully, I managed to find another trainer from whom I can fly away (I'm going through them pretty quickly aren't I?)"

"TR Rose, I found something interesting in my pokemon blue game. I was doing the Mew Glitch and tried it against the fisherman. After I defeated him and went to Lavender town, a MissingNo. appeared at the west exit, like I thought it would. After I caught it, I couldn't do the Mew trick anymore with the gambler or the guy west of the gambler. Then I saved, turned it off and didn't play it for a day. When I turned it back on, it was working
perfectly again."

A Mew Trick that Works