Pokopia Companion

There’s a trick going around, popularized by Austin John Plays in this video, that turns Pokémetal farming into a two-pass Minecraft strip-mine. The dense Pokémetal seam on the Sky Dream Island sits about six blocks below the surface, but the clever bit isn’t the depth, it’s the two passes. First you scout the area with baseline Rock Smash to clear everything AROUND the ore, then you come back with Rock Smash powered up and harvest only the ore itself. Net result: roughly 800 Pokémetal and 100 Rare Pokémetal per hour, with a near-zero junk pickup rate.

Before You Go

A checklist of what to bring, and why:

Dragonite doll. Interact with the doll once per day to summon Drifloon, who then warps you to the Sky Dream Island where the seam lives. You can also track Drifloon down and hand the doll over in person, but summoning is easier.
Potato Hamburger Steak. The other steaks just power up Rock Smash, but this one powers it up a lot, and that's the tier you need to crack Pokémetal Blocks. You'll eat it between the two passes, not at the start.
Simple Salad (or any salad, my personal go-to). During the scouting pass you'll need to refill PP without re-buffing Rock Smash, and salads power up Leafage, not Rock Smash. Leaves are basically free in this game, so stock up.
The Rollout ability. Unlock it by earning the Graveler transformation. Rollout carves through entire clusters of Pokémetal Blocks in seconds.
At home: a Smelting Furnace with any Burn-specialty Pokémon staffed. Fragments don’t do anything until they’re smelted into bars.

That’s the minimum. Pack the doll, pocket the steak for later, and summon Drifloon.

Phase 1: The Scouting Pass

The mental model is Minecraft, with a twist. On this first pass, you don’t want to break Pokémetal. You want to break everything AROUND it.

Skip the Potato Hamburger Steak for now. Eat a salad, a piece of bread, or nothing at all. Anything that leaves Rock Smash at its default power. Default Rock Smash breaks dirt, grass, and stone just fine, but bounces off Pokémetal Blocks. That’s exactly the filter you need.

Here’s the cross-section you’re aiming for once the pass is done:

+----- SKY DREAM ISLAND -----+
|                            |  <- beach level
|                            |  1
|                            |  2
|                            |  3
|                            |  4
|                            |  5
|  O  O  O  O  O  O  O  O    |  6  <- Pokémetal seam, exposed
|  O  O  O  O  O  O  O  O    |  7  <- mine from here
+----------------------------+

Start at beach level, face straight down, and break 7 blocks deep with Rock Smash to clear all the way through the filler and into the full seam depth. Then sweep horizontally, carving the dirt and stone out from around any Pokémetal Blocks you uncover. The ground gets littered with junk drops, and here’s the elegant bit: the ground has a 200-item cap. As you keep smashing, old drops auto-despawn to make room for new ones. You never pick any of it up. By the end of the scouting pass, the only intact blocks left in your dig site are the Pokémetal ore you came for, neatly exposed.

Phase 2: The Harvest Pass

Now eat the Potato Hamburger Steak. Rock Smash goes from baseline to “a lot”, which is the tier that breaks Pokémetal Blocks cleanly.

Go back through the shafts you just dug. Everything around the Pokémetal is gone, so every hit lands on ore. Switch to Graveler and aim Rollout along the seam (horizontal, not down). One Rollout pass clears a whole row of Pokémetal Blocks and scatters Pokémetal Fragments (and, with luck, Rare Pokémetal Fragments) around you.

The 200-item cap now works in your favor a second time. Because the only drops on the ground are fragments you actually want, nothing else competes for slots. You can sweep through picking up clean Pokémetal without pausing to sort.

When the column is clear, step sideways by one, turn, and go again. Rinse, repeat. The surface pockmarks left behind look awful, but the island resets on the next daily visit so there’s no lasting damage.

Two small things that pay off:

Keep the Potato Hamburger Steak buff topped up. If Rock Smash stops breaking Pokémetal Blocks, eat another one.
Don’t skip blocks because they look “too deep.” The seam is thicker than it reads at first glance. If you’re on row 6 or 7 and you can still see dark ore-coloured blocks, there’s more to mine.

Phase 3: The Forge

Fragments aren’t useful raw. Back home, load your Smelting Furnace with Pokémetal Fragments and let a Burn-specialty Pokémon run it. Out come Pokémetal bars. Same process for the rare variant: Rare Fragments in, Rare Pokémetal out.

If you haven’t built a furnace yet, the Farms guide walks through a full Smelting Furnace setup with a Gather-specialty Pokémon feeding it automatically. Worth doing once, then every run after becomes hands-off at the smelting step.

Boosting Rare Drops (Mosslax)

Optional but nice. Once you’ve cleared the “Brighten Things Up” request and woken Mosslax, you can feed it high-quality bitter food ( Seaweed Salad works) for a temporary environmental buff that bumps up the Rare Fragment drop rate while it’s active. Feed Mosslax right before summoning Drifloon, and the buff carries through both passes.

What the Haul Gets You

A full loop (scouting pass + harvest pass) runs about an hour and lands you roughly 800 Pokémetal + 100 Rare Pokémetal, give or take your luck on drops and how aggressive your Rollout pathing is. That’s enough to:

3D-print a long list of items you’ve photographed on community Cloud Islands. Rare items cost Rare Pokémetal, so the 100-rare figure matters.
Craft the Clear Bell and Tidal Bell, both Rare Pokémetal sinks, if you’re chasing the legendary summons.
Stockpile for furniture crafts that keep asking for Pokémetal bars in double digits.

One Dragonite doll, two passes, one hour. The best Pokémetal rate in the game.