Based on the previously written go hub article about triggering ex-raids: https://pokemongohub.net/gym-raid-update/comprehensive-guide-trigger-ex-raids/
I see 500-850 points being mentioned to trigger one, however, I’ve had plenty of occasions where ex-raids have been triggered with nowhere near 500 points according to the formula mentioned in the article (raid level times number of players), which also makes me wonder if the formula is wrong or the minimum number of points is wrong.
As an example, after one of the legendary bird days, an ex-raid was triggered on a gym local players usually avoid, on the day there were about 20 players raiding this gym, that’s about 100 points based on the formula published in above article.
Another example, the gym we had a deoxys spawn on yesterday was not the gym everyone was hammering, the gym being hammered was just up the road in a different cell, other than 23 players doing a level 5 raid on the gym deoxys spawned on during chikorita community day, I don’t believe there were other big raids done on it.
This makes me wonder, could the minimum points required be much lower than 500? E.g. 100, 150, 200? Or is the formula wrong and it is actually something more like number of players times level squared, e.g. 20 players times level 5 squared (25) is 500 points, which would put more emphasis on people doing higher level raids. Or is it simply that one raid during the week must itself have gotten so many points and if you raided at other times you may get an invite?
Just trying to help a person in another town with fewer players get on top of ex-raids so that they can trigger them more often.
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Not sure if you’ve seen in some of my previous posts that I’m involved with a group that do a fair bit of theory testing on Ex Raids. We have the luxury that we have a few very low traffic Gyms that we’ve been able to do this testing on.
Our belief is throw the whole points system out the window. Tier size and amounts in Lobbies is irrelevant. We’re confident we’ve proven this with 25 of us Raiding a very low traffic Gym in the cycle and some doing a T1 while other did T2. We triggered the Ex Raid and no randoms outside our group showed up.
To trigger all you need is a set number of unique trainers Raid that Gym in the cycle. Our belief is that number is either 20 or 25 minimum. We’re leaning more to 20 as that’s the maximum size you can have in any Lobby to do any Raid.
It gets quite complex when the game works out who gets what Ex Passes for where. Just because the magic number was reached for a particular Gym it does not mean tit will actually get triggered. If some of those trainers Raided other Ex Gyms their number might be used to make the quota on another Gym which means they are out of the pool of numbers for the Gyms(s). That Gym(s) might then fall below the threshold number thus not triggering.
We’re fairly sure the game algorithms work out how to trigger the maximum amount of Ex Raids as possible crunching all the scenarios if Trainer xx is used for the number in Gym A over B and C (assuming that Trainer did 3 Ex Gyms that cycle for this example)
Hope that makes sense as it’s easier to explain in person than trying to type into words.
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That article is relatively old when talking about triggering EX-raids.
Alot has changed.
For your friends situation its quite simple tough. Pick 1 or 2 gyms each week where everyone available should raid on atleast once. I agree with @NotanotherKangaskhan, 20 people should do the trick. If he doesnt have that many people, its worth i try to do it with less right?
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Even if you don’t know enough people yourself it’s still worth hitting the Ex Gyms as others my Raid it you don’t or wont know about until you meet them at the Ex Raid 
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