Mewtwo is coming to Pokemon GO in a new "exclusive raid battle" feature

A little while back Niantic talked about releasing the legendary Pokemon in Pokemon GO via invite-only raids. Trainers who participated in raids and gyms often would be given invites to battle legendary Pokemon. That idea kind of went out the door after the debacle that was the Pokemon GO Fest in Chicago and each of the legendary birds and Lugia became available for a certain duration of time. However, the invite-only idea wasn't completely forgotten as Niantic is using the concept for the next legendary Pokemon: Mewtwo.

Earlier today trainers at the Pokemon GO Stadium event in Yokohama, Japan got the opportunity to battle and potentially catch Mewtwo and Niantic has stated the powerful psychic Pokemon will be available across the world, but there's a small catch. Mewtwo will only be available in a new type of raid battle called Exclusive Raid Battles. These will be similar to the current raid battles with a few differences. Exclusive raids will occasionally pop up at gyms around the world, but unlike normal raids, trainers will be invited to join an Exclusive Raid Battle. To receive an invite trainers must have successfully completed a raid recently, meaning having defeated the raid boss, at the gym where the Exclusive Raid Battle will take place. Invitations will include an advance warning of when the battle will take place to give them time to coordinate with other trainers. Niantic has also stated that Mewtwo is the first Pokemon that can be faced in Exclusive Raid Battles but other powerful Pokemon may appear in the future.

I'm kind of on the fence about this. Unless I missed it there's nothing saying that Niantic will state ahead of time which gyms will have the Exclusive Raid Battles or how close to the battle do you have to defeat a raid boss beforehand. Also considering that Lugia was made available during normal raids I figured that Mewtwo would be as well and they'd use the Exclusive Raid Battles for the mythical Pokemon such as Mew and Celebi. We'll have to see in the coming weeks just how well this plays out.