Pokémon GO trainers who have been searching for Unova Stones are in luck. The item has been notoriously hard to come by up until now, as there's only a chance to get it once a week. Now potential encounters are much more frequent thanks to the latest event.
Team GO Rocket's leaders have finally made it to Pokémon GO. While Giovanni himself is still nowhere to be seen, his trusted generals are taking the field to battle capable trainers. All the trainers have to do is collect a bunch of mysterious components, put them together, and track the leaders down. Once they've done that, and defeated the leader, it's possible to get a Unova Stone as a battle reward.
The good news is that finding the items necessary to track the leaders should be easy. When it works as intended, the game is supposed to give you an item called "Mysterious Component" whenever you defeat a Team GO Rocket Grunt. When six Mysterious Components are collected, the player can combine them to make a Rocket Radar. This item will change the map (as seen above) and allow the player to see the location of the nearest Team GO Rocket Leader. After the player defeats the leader, they can collect their Unova Stone.
The bad news is that the process works on a case-by-case basis. Reddit user Slamboni12 showed off their Mysterious Component on the Silph Road subreddit. Many users in the comments expressed their inability to get one from battles. Other users said they got them from every battle. So is the event being rolled out slowly to select few users at a time? Or is it bugged and just not working as it should? Only time will tell.
The other thing to be aware of is that a Unova Stone is not guaranteed from leader battles. They can give other items as well, like potions, revives, or a Sinnoh Stone. Still, any chance is better than no chance. And the GO Rocket leaders occasionally leave behind rare Shadow Pokémon like Sneasel or Scyther, so they're worth hunting down anyway. It's time to battle, trainers. Good luck!
Source: Reddit