Pokémon TCG Pocket trading: how does it work and how to get Trade Tokens
THREE months after the game’s launch, Pokémon TCG Pocket has finally added a trading feature.
Trading dropped with the latest update to the app, so if you still don’t have it activated on the Social Hub tab, head over to your phone’s app store and manually update.
The much-requested feature lets players exchange cards with their TCG Pocket friends, helping them get rid of duplicates and grab cards they haven’t collected yet.
The Pokémon Company has promised that trading is coming in a future update ever since the game released.
The Trade option is displayed in the app’s Social Hub, next to Friends and Community Showcases but it was greyed out until today.
trading comes with some restrictions, and there are a few rules you should know before you start exchanging your precious cards with other players.
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Here’s everything there is to know about trading in TCG Pocket.
How to trade in Pokémon TCG Pocket
Here are the basic steps to initiate a trade in Pokémon TCG Pocket:
- Go to the Social Hub tab in TCG Pocket and then select Trade.
- From the Trade screen, tap the Trade button and select a friend to trade with.
- Then, choose a card you wish to offer to your friend.
- Your friend will have 2 days to respond to your trade
- Check back the trade screen to see your friend’s response
- View the card they’re offering and tap OK.
You won’t be able to start another trade until the first one is resolved, expires, or you terminate it before your friend responds.
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Only like-for-like cards can be traded, which means cards from the same rarity, and if you trade a card with flair, your friend must also send a card with flair.
Each successful trade consumes Trade Stamina, one unit per trade, regardless of card rarity.
If your trade is declined by your friend or you cancel it before they accept, the stamina point and the card you offered are returned to you.
Trade Stamina recovers one point every 24h, up to a maximum of 5 stamina points.
There are extra stamina slots for recovered stamina points when a trade is unsuccessful.
You can use the new Trade Hourglasses to reduce the time required to recover trade stamina.
These can be obtained by completing missions that reward them, but we’re yet to see these added to the game.
Of course, you can also spend Poké Gold to recover stamina, but it costs real money.
How to enable trade offers from other players
The option to Suspend Trade Offers may be enabled by default, so if you want to allow all players on your friend list to send you cards, here’s how to turn it off.
Tap the main menu button and select Other; then tap Settings, scroll down to Suspend Trade Offers and tap the toggle to turn it off.
You can turn this back on at any time if you want to stop receiving trade offers.
How to get Trade Tokens in Pokémon TCG Pocket
Cards of three- and four-diamond and one-star rarities consume an additional resource called Trade Tokens when they are traded.
Three-diamond rarity cards require 120 Trade Tokens, while four-diamond cards will use 500 Trade Tokens.
Cards of one-star rarity require 400 Trade Tokens to trade them, and cards of two- and three-star and crown rarities are not tradeable at all right now.
To obtain Trade Tokens in Pokémon TCG Pocket, you need to exchange them in the same way you do to obtain flair.
To exchange a card for Trade Tokens, select a card that’s at least of three-diamond rarity in the My Cards tab.
Tap the Obtain Items button and select the green Trade Token icon.
Just like with flair, you need to have at least three copies of a card to sacrifice one for Trade Tokens, as you must be left with two cards or more after the exchange.
The amount of Trade Tokens you receive per card depends on its rarity.
One- and two-diamond rarity cards cannot be exchanged for Trade Tokens, while three- and four-diamond cards earn you 25 and 125 Trade Tokens per card, respectively.
You get 100 Trade Tokens for each one-star card you destroy, and 300 for two- and three-star cards.
Cards of crown rarity can also be destroyed for a whopping 1500 Trade Tokens per card.
Some special cards cannot be exchanged for tokens, regardless of their rarity, such as the rare immersive Mew card.
Not that you would want to destroy cards like this one, anyway.
TCG Pocket trading rules
Here are some additional rules to keep in mind when trading in Pokémon TCG Pocket.
Promo cards cannot be traded at all; these include special cards obtained from the shop, campaigns, missions, wonder pick events, and promo packs received as rewards during battle events.
Item cards like Potion, Professor’s Research and Poké Ball, also count as promo cards and cannot be traded.
As we mentioned, cards with flair can be traded only for other cards with flair from the same rarity.
You can select flair and the language of the cards, if you own the same card in multiple languages, from the Edit Card option before sending it.
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That’s everything you need to know about trading in TCG Pocket
For more on the game, check how Pokémon TCG Pocket’s devs warned players of bans ahead of trading’s launch.
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