09.07.2025
What's Lucky Trade in Pokemon GO? Full Guide to Lucky Pokemon
Have you ever been lucky enough to get a surprise Lucky Trade in Pokemon GO? Did you know what actually happened – or how the Pokemon you received was affected? It's no surprise that many players are confused about how they work. Lucky Trades seem completely random and they happen too rarely to really matter. Besides, what do they even do except for showing a flashy animation?
Let's clear up the mystery together in our brief but detailed blog post! By the end of it, you'll see that there's nothing magical about Lucky Trades – they are all about strategy. And once you understand how you can make use of them, you'll be ready to use them to your full advantage. So let's start with the basics...
🤔 What is Lucky Trade in Pokemon GO?
A Lucky Trade in Pokemon GO is a special type of trade where both players receive Lucky Pokemon. Such Pokemon have a higher chance of good stats and a permanent discount on power-ups.
Lucky Trades can happen unexpectedly during any trade with any other player. However, they are more likely with friends, as every once in a while you randomly get a Lucky Friend bonus. It guarantees your next trade with a particular friend to be Lucky. There are also a few other ways to raise your chances of getting a Lucky Trade – we'll cover them in a later section.
Before we move on to how exactly Lucky Pokemon are different from their (unlucky?) regular counterparts, here are the differences between two types of trades:
| REGULAR TRADE | LUCKY TRADE | |
|---|---|---|
| What do you get? | A regular Pokemon | A Lucky Pokemon: good stats and cheaper power-ups |
| When does it happen? | Whenever you participate in a trade | Randomly. Can be triggered with the Lucky Friend bonus and a few other things |
Ok, now let's see what the benefits of owning a Lucky Pokemon are.
PokeCoins Delivery Service 🎁
Get one of the most sought-after currencies in the game much quicker and at a pleasantly surprising price. Our Pokemon GO Pokecoins boost is straightforward, secure, and reliable! Order them today and stock up on incubators and lures!
🍀 What makes Lucky Pokemon special?
Lucky Pokemon has two major advantages: better stats and cheaper power-ups.
Better Stats 💪
What we mean by "stats" are the so-called IVs – Individual Values. Each Pokemon has 3 IVs: Attack, Defense, and Stamina:
- 🗡 Attack boosts your damage
- 🛡 Defense reduces incoming damage
- 💪 Stamina increases your total health
(Note ⚠️: Since summer 2025, thanks to the introduction of Hyper Training, you now can improve IV values. However, it's not easy to do and most of your Pokemon are not likely to get their IVs raised with it. So despite there technically being a way to override the initial stats, for the sake of simplicity, we'll stick to a more realistic view)
So IVs are like genes 🧬: you gotta use what you got. And Lucky Pokemon have a bad-gene protection: their IVs can't go below 12. The min. value is 0, the max. stat is 15 – so 12 takes you very close to the cap. Note that even powerful Legendaries can sometimes drop to single-digit IVs – so Lucky Trades provide you with a very welcome safety net.
And here's the best part 😎: while 12 is the minimum, it's still possible for any or all of the stats to hit a perfect 15. It's not uncommon to get at least one stat maxed, so if you're Lucky-Trading, you can be sure you're getting a great competitive fighter.
Power-Up Discount 🤑
The other major benefit of Lucky Pokemon is a 50% Stardust discount on power-ups. So essentially, your Lucky Pokemon is already quite strong from the start with those 12+ IVs – and the discount makes it very easy to make it even stronger by raising its level with less Stardust.
Imagine having that bonus for a high-cost Pokemon like Legendaries or the ones favored by the PvP meta. And the discount is permanent – it won't go away after some time or a particular number of purchased upgrades.
Take a look at some real-time cases of Stardust savings you can achieve:
| POKEMON | LEVEL GOAL | REGULAR COST | LUCKY COST | YOU SAVE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legendary (like Mewtwo) | 20 → 40 | 270,000 | 135,000 | 135,000 |
| Standard (like Dragonite) | 15 → 40 | 248,000 | 124,000 | 124,000 |
| PvP-Optimized for Great League XL (like Azumatill) | 15 → 41.5 | 296,000 | 148,000 | 148,000 |
Affordable Stardust Delivery 🌟
Stardust is one of the most valuable – and scarce – resources in Pokemon GO. You need mountains of it to power up your team, but earning even a fraction of that is likely to be a grind. That's where our Pokemon GO Stardust boost comes in handy! Get all the Stardust you need quickly, easily, and at a great price.
But there must be a catch, right? 🤨
So far, it all sounds too good to be true – even for a random bonus. Yet it's real, and there's no fine print: Lucky Pokemon are indeed that great, and that's why Lucky Trades are so sought after.
What some might see as a downside, however, is that the Lucky status isn't guaranteed to stick if you trade the Pokemon again. As mentioned previously, every Pokemon's IVs are randomly re-calculated during every trade. So unless you're trading a Lucky Pokemon in a Lucky Trade – let's call that going double lucky 🍀 – there's no way to guarantee it keeping all those amazing perks for the next owner.
And while it might seem logical, using a Lucky Pokemon in a trade doesn't turn it into a Lucky Trade – neither does it at least raise the chance.
Can you only get a Lucky Pokemon via trading? 🤔
Yes, Lucky Pokemon are exclusive to trading. You can't catch one in the wild, get it from eggs or raids. Basically, it's what makes trading stand out as a possible source of particularly powerful fighters.
💯 Can you have a guaranteed Lucky Trade?
Yes. Thankfully, guaranteed Lucky Trades are absolutely possible in Pokemon GO – but they are tied to specific conditions. While it's true that most Lucky Trades happen by chance, you don't have to just sit and wait till you randomly get it. Here's how you can either guarantee a Lucky Trade o at least raise the odds in your favour:
- 🤝 Become Lucky Friends
- 🕰 Trade old Pokemon (2016-2018)
- ☘️ Use a Lucky Trinket
Lucky Friends 🤝
The Lucky Friend status guarantees that your next trade with a specific friend will be a Lucky Trade. But who can become that "specific friend"?
🎁 How do you get it? First, this player must be one of your Best Friends, which is the highest friendship level in the game. Secondly, you need to interact with them: send a gift, have a trade, raid together, etc. After that, it's all down to luck: there's about a 1% chance that your first interaction of the day with a Best Friend will trigger the Lucky Friend status.
🕹 How do you use it? It's simple: just do a trade. The trade will be guaranteed to be Lucky, so make sure to use it for something valuable – a Legendary, for example. After you've completed a trade, the status gets consumed. What's great is that your next first interaction of the day with the same friend can trigger another Lucky Friend status – you can do that every day, there's no cooldown.
⏱ Does it expire? No, so take your time. If you currently don't have a worthy trading option, just wait till you get one – and it doesn't matter how long it will take: days, months, or even years. The Lucky Friend status won't go anywhere with time.
👥 Can you get it with multiple friends? Yes, absolutely. And since you can have up to 200 Best Friends, you can try your luck by interacting with all of them – and do the same tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...
So while this method isn't entirely reliable, it offers plenty of daily opportunities to get a guaranteed Lucky Trade. And since it's so easy to try, you shouldn't miss out on it!
Get Lucky Trades Whenever You Need 😎
Take control of your luck! With ArmadaBoost's Pokemon GO Lucky Trade boost, you can unlock as many Lucky Trades as you want – exactly when you need them. No waiting, no guesswork. Order today and power up your team with high-IV Lucky Pokemon!
Old Pokemon 🕰
It might be hard to believe, but Pokemon GO has been around since 2016. If you've been playing since the early days, you might have a few extra Lucky Trade tickets in your collection – the so-called Old Pokemon.
👴🏻 What's considered an Old Pokemon? Any Pokemon added to the collection between July 2016 and December 2018.
🤔 How do they trigger Lucky Trades? A trade is guaranteed to automatically become Lucky Trade if you use an Old Pokemon in it. But there are a couple of requirements:
- Just one Pokemon is Old: the other traded Pokemon must be caught in 2019 or later
- No more than 35 such trades: as of June 2025, you can only get 35 guaranteed Lucky Trades by trading an Old Pokemon. You can still get a Lucky Trade for the 36th Old Pokemon, but it's not guaranteed
⏱ This limit isn't forever. It has already changed two times: initially it used to be 15, then it rose to 25 in 2022, and the current limit of 35 has been in effect since February 2025. So if you have a really large stock of Old Pokemon, you'll likely get more charges with time.
↗️ Progressive bonus. Do you have Pokemon caught years ago, but not qualifying as Old because you got them in 2019 or later? No worries – they are still more likely to trigger a lucky trade than newer ones. The default Lucky Trade rate for a recently caught Pokemon is 5%. After it's been in your collection for a year, the rate rises to 10%. After two years – to 15%, after three – to 20%. So it certainly pays to have a couple of old timers in your inventory.
Lucky Trinket ☘️
The Lucky Trinket does exactly what it promises: it makes your next trade with a friend a guaranteed Lucky Trade. You'd expect something as straightforward as this to be a regular purchase in the in-game shop... But alas, for some reason, it's more complicated than that. Let's start with learning more about how it works.
🤝 What friends can you apply it to? Great friends or above: that also includes Ultra and Best friends. A quick refresher of the Friendship levels in Pokemon GO (from high to low):
| # | LEVEL | REQUIREMENT | ELIGIBLE FOR TRINKET? ☘️ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Best Friend | 90+ days of interaction | ✅ Yes |
| 2 | Ultra Friend | 30+ days of interaction | ✅ Yes |
| 3 | Great Friend | 7+ days of interaction | ✅ Yes |
| 4 | Good Friend | 1+ day of interaction | ❌ No |
| 5 | Friend | None | ❌ No |
🎁 How do you get this trinket? Here's where things become unnecessarily complicated. There's no way to just buy it separately. It can only be obtained as a reward from premium passes. Currently, there are two types of passes that feature it:
- the GO Pass Deluxe (a monthly pass)
- the Tour Pass Deluxe (a special event pass)
🕹 How do you use it? You just activate it for an eligible friend you're planning to have a trade with. Then do a trade – it's now guaranteed to be lucky. The trinket only has one charge, so it gets consumed immediately after being applied. Also, you need to hurry up, because the trinket can actually expire...
⏱ How long does the trinket last? It usually outlives the pass it's rewarded for – but not for long, usually
about a week. For example:
- The May 2025 Trinket expired on June 8
- The June 2025 Trinket expired on July 6
You got the idea. If you haven't used the trinket before the deadline, it's gone for good – no extensions, no refunds.
* * *
Lucky you – now you know everything there is to know about Lucky Trades and Lucky Pokemon! With this knowledge, you can approach trades more strategically and raise your chances of triggering them exactly when it makes sense to you. And you don't have to just imagine the benefits – you can start building your dream team today with stronger Pokemon and way less Stardust spent.
And if you ever need help with maximizing Lucky Trades – or anything else in Pokemon Go, like adding Shundos to your collection or progressing faster with any of the game's systems – ArmadaBoost is here for you! We're always ready to assist with anything you need to make your journey smoother, easier, and a whole lot more fun! Browse our catalog to learn more or get in touch with us!
Success
Data
updated