How To Be Lucky Friends In Pokemon Go

How The Guarantee Actually Works

A piece of the puzzle was missing. Now, thanks to a series of carefully controlled experiments conducted by Silph Research Group Scientists, as well as Lead and Senior Researchers, we can report that at this time1 the actual mechanism for guaranteed Lucky Trades involving a July-August 2016 Pokémon appears to be:

All July-Aug 2016 Pokémon are guaranteed Lucky if the sender has been in fewer than 10 trades where at least one party was guaranteed.

At first, this may seem like a subtle distinction, but it means that not all Lucky trades are created equal. Lucky trades that were not guaranteed before the total is met do not appear to count towards the 10 guaranteed allotment.

Ignorance of this previously-unknown distinction meant many of the data points previously believed non-guaranteed were in fact guaranteed!

Limited 100% Lucky Trade

Other than trading with a Lucky Friend, there is another situation where a Lucky Trade is guaranteed, introduced as a promotion to get lapsed players back into the game. The requirement are quite strict:

• One of the Pokémon being traded must have been caught during July or August 2016
• The Trainer sending the guaranteed Lucky Pokémon must have been involved in fewer than 10 trades where at least one party was guaranteed.
• The Trainer receiving the Lucky Pokémon does not affect this trade, though it will increase their own count of guaranteed Lucky Trades.
• It is currently unknown if Lucky Trades from being Lucky Friends impact this count, but there have been reports that they do.

Lucky Trade Strategy Considerations

The mistake that I think everyone is making is that they are sitting on their Lucky Trades too long and trying to come up with the perfect Lucky Trade. We dont know the Lucky Friend rate, but we do know that they arent impossibly rare and we do know that you can become Lucky Friends with the same person more than once. I would think it generally wiser to just do a Lucky Trade that you can both be happy with and work towards going Lucky again rather than spend forever agonizing over what Lucky Trade to do.

As the friendship feature continues to age, and as people have more and more best friends there is no reason to worry about every Lucky Trade being the perfect trade. There is no bad Lucky unless you trade for a Bidoof. We have been trading and trading Legendaries/shinies, forever without this feature and if they took it away tomorrow we would continue to do so.

Unless you and a friend have a specific trade in mind and are waiting for it to be a Lucky Trade, it will probably be a lot less stressful and a lot more fun to just go through a list like this, find a trade you can be happy with, and move on with your life. Treat it as a bonus for playing rather than a precious resource that you dont want to waste. At the end of the day, this is a friendship feature in a mobile game, not a life-altering decision.

Don’t Miss: What Time Do Raids End Pokemon Go

How Do You Get A Pokmon Best Friend

Good Friends, which players reach after trading or exchanging gifts once. Great Friends, which players reach after trading or exchanging gifts over a period of seven days. Ultra Friends, reached after trading or exchanging gifts for 30 days straight. Best Friends, which is reached after 90 days of interaction.

Breakthrough: How Guaranteed Lucky Trades Actually Work

The Silph Research Groups long-awaited article on the mechanics of Lucky Trades caused a stir when it reported trading Pokémon caught in July and August 2016 resulted in Lucky Pokémon in 75% of trades. Many travelers reported that the Silph Research Groups findings did not appear to match their observations. While it would be tempting to suspect reporting bias, the Research Groups datapoints were collected in a highly controlled setting. We suspected more was going on under the surface than met the eye.

To get to the bottom of these reports of varying rates, the Research Group put the mechanics of guaranteed Lucky Trades under the microscope. As it turns out, guaranteed Lucky Trades dont operate quite the way they were announced! Heres what we learned

Don’t Miss: How To Change Weather Pokemon Shield

Finding Current Friendship Days Counter

If you are not in control of the Best Friend level-up timing because:

• The timer has said ‘play together for 1 more day’ since yesterday or even longer
• Your friend has your unopened gift, but you have no gift from your friend
• You don’t have any way to communicate

This worked for me:

• I remembered the name of the friend in control.
• As soon as I opened the game, I immediately went to News:
• I saw that the friend had opened my gift a few hours ago.
• I quickly pressed ‘Items’ and activated a lucky egg.Right after that, I got the Best Friend notification and 200,000 XP points

This also worked for me:

• Compete in raid with friend, which raised us to Best Friend status, and it even said so in the screen before the ‘catch’ event.
• I had no active lucky egg though.
• I completed the catch, then immediately activated a lucky egg. When message for the update to my XP arrived, it was 200,000.

Lucky Friends: Understanding Feature Mechanics

The Lucky Friends feature was introduced six months ago. The initial thought was that this feature would be a bit too overpowered. However, things seemed to turn out differently due to the apparently low odds of becoming Lucky Friends with one of your in-game friends. Lets analyze whether or not this is true.

On this page

Read Also: How To Soft Reset Pokemon Ultra Moon

What Lucky Friends Are And How To Get Them

Lucky Friends are the next level up from the max friendship level of Best Friends. Becoming lucky friends with someone is a simple concept. All you need to do is interact through any of the following ways:

• Trading
• Battling in Gyms together
• Battling each other

The big catch is that it happens at random. All you can do is keep trying the list above until the RNG gods smile down on you.

Unlike all previous friendship levels, Lucky Friends are only temporary. They drop back down to Best Friends the next time you trade with that player. You can always get this special relationship back, but only every 24 hours per friend.

Your friendship level drops back to Best Friends because the trade you make with a Lucky Friend results in both Pokemon becoming lucky. This is a huge upgrade from the previously random chance of a trade producing a lucky Pokemon.

It makes sense that its so limited since maintaining the new friend status would ruin the novelty of Lucky Pokemon. If you could make every Pokemon get that status at will then it would lessen the need for players to acquire as much stardust for leveling up their creatures.

So even though its easier to get the Lucky status on a Pokemon now, its still important to choose wisely. Dont waste a single chance to get a super powerful Pokemon by accidentally trading for a lowly Dunsparce.

Pokemon Go: Fans Gather In Chicago For Pokemon Go Fest

Opening a Gift from each other, teaming up in raids and Gym battles, or challenging each other to a Trainer Battle all count.

And when it does happen, you will unlock the new Friend tier, albeit for a limited time.

Thats because after you complete a trade, you will drop back down to Best Friends, waiting again for another chance.

Heres more information from Niantic, who confirmed: Once you become Best Friends, all subsequent friendship interactions have a small chance to make you and your Best Friend become Lucky Friends.

Youll be notified by an in-app notification and will be able to see that theyre your Lucky Friend in your Friend List and Friend Profile page.

When you are Lucky Friends with someone, the next time you trade with each other, both Pokémon will become Lucky Pokémon.

“After the trade, your Lucky Friend status will be cleared. You can try to become Lucky Friends again by increasing your Friendship.

For those Trainers wondering how to tell if youre Best Friend is now a Lucky Friend, you find out via a notification, making it hard to miss.

Youll also be able to see that theyre your new Lucky Friend in your Friend List and on their friend profile page.

This is a new feature, so fans should be ready for a few hiccups along the way to becoming Lucky Friends with someone.

Niantic also decided to release another new feature alongside today’s Lucky Pokemon expansion, that being avatar poses.

Recommended Reading: Is There A Pokemon Game For Ps4

Other Information You Need To Know About Lucky Pokmon

There are other small details you should know about Lucky Pokémon :

• Lucky Pokémon have high IVs, starting on 12/12/12 for HP, Defense and Attack. This means that you can make a less powerful Pokémon a very competitive creature!
• There seems to be no limit on the amount of Lucky Pokémon you can get in one day. Originally, it was thought that there was, but according to Silph Road, the limit was removed or the information was incorrect.
• Searching Lucky in your Pokémon collection will reveal your creatures
• Lucky Pokémon can also be Shiny, Shadow and Purified.

Pokemon Go Lucky Pokemon: How To Become Lucky Friends And Get Lucky Pokemon

Pokemon Go lucky Pokemon have existed in the game for a long time now, but they’re somewhat of a hidden mechanic. Unless you become lucky friends with someone coincidentally in Pokemon Go, chances are you’re not going to find out about lucky Pokemon or even if you do hear about them through the grapevine, it’s not self-explanatory at all. We’re here to help however, with all you need to know about Pokemon Go lucky Pokemon, friends, and more.

You May Like: How To Reset Pokemon Black 2

How To Become Lucky Friends In Pokmon Go

Once youre Best Friends with another player, anything that would normally raise your friendship levels has a chance to turn you both into Lucky Friends. This means that your next trade with that player will turn both traded Pokémon into Lucky Pokémon.

While Niantic hasnt announced the Lucky Friends chance, some researchers on The Silph Road subredditnote that the Lucky Friends odds is a little bit below 2% per exchange.

Lucky Pokémon have their Stardust required to power up cut in half, so its pretty nice to have one of your powerful Pokémon Lucky, since itll cut down on the required resources.. But beware individual values or IVs shift around quite a bit when you trade them, so the high IV Kyogre you might want to swap with your Lucky Friend may end up being a little weaker than before. That said, Lucky Pokémon are guaranteed to have at least 12 in all three main stats, which means an 80% IV or higher.

Registered In The Pokemon’s Pokedex Entry

You can check the number of Lucky Pokemon you have in the Pokemon’s specific Pokedex entry. The number can be found under its Pokedex number and name.

Different Forms Still Get Lucky Pokedex Screens

For example, getting a Pokemon Unown, which has many forms, getting one Lucky Unown will automatically make all Unown forms have the Lucky background in its Pokedex entry.

Read Also: Trade Mythical Pokemon

What Is The New Pokemon Go Lucky Friends Feature

The patch notes for this latest version of Pokemon Go read as follows: “Trainers who are Best Friends will have a chance of becoming Lucky Friends.” So – what does this mean?

In Pokemon Go, friendship isn’t just a simple list of players you’ve added – it’s a changing, growing list, with different levels of friendship depending on how much time you’ve spent doing things with another player. By sending gifts, playing through Pokemon raid encounter battles and trading Pokemon, players can ‘level up’ their friendship, with the top tier being ‘Best Friends’.

Lucky Friends are basically a temporary buff to your friendship status. Once you’re best friends with someone, you’ll have a chance to be temporarily made each other’s ‘special friend’ each time you perform a friendship-based act with them. That means each time you trade Pokemon, open gifts from each other, team up in raid battles or gym encounters, or even have a one-on-one trainer battle. Each time will give you a chance this will happen, and when it does Pokemon Go will make a big song and dance about it, notifying you that you’re now lucky friends.

Once you are Lucky Friends, the buff is simple: the first trade you make with that player is guaranteed to create a Lucky Pokemon. Lucky Pokemon are buffed Pokemon that have cheaper stat upgrades and generally better performance across the board, so this is well worthwhile.

Pokemon Go Lucky Friends Guide

There are currently five levels of player friendships in Pokemon GO: Good, Great, Ultra, Best, and Lucky. Essentially, once players become friends in-game, they can raise their friendship level by battling each other, completing raids together, trading pokemon, sending gifts, and a few other things. The more friends do these activities, the higher their friendship level will get. To quickly and effectively raise friendship levels, players will need to complete some of the tasks in the list above daily. Further, friendships can only be leveled up once per day.

To become Lucky friends in Pokemon GO, players will first need to become Best friends with another player. Once youve done that, simply continue to send gifts to each other and battle together and eventually youll reach Lucky friend status. If youre just starting out with a new friend, this process will likely take a long time and will require daily dedication, so be patient and try to find a good routine. Its also worth noting that once you become Best friends, youll only have one shot at becoming Lucky friends each day, so dont worry about trying to spam friendship leveling activities multiple times a day.

Recommended Reading: Most Powerful Pokemon Non Legendary

The Secrets Of Traded Pokmon: Lucky Rates

2019-05-24: Since this study was published, the 75% Lucky rate for July-August 2016 Pokémon it references was called into question multiple times. The Silph Research Group has conducted more research into these Lucky rates and guaranteed trades involving July-August Pokémon. Due to a new understanding of guaranteed trades, the rates for July-August 2016 Pokémon as presented in this article are likely incorrect, details can be found in our more current publication, here.

On the 4th of February, Niantic announced the Lunar New Year event. In a Pokémon GO first, this event boosted the rate at which Lucky Pokémon could be received. This has heightened interest in Lucky rates in general, but the question remains what are the regular, unboosted rates in the first place?

Fortunately, the Silph Research Group has completed over 9,000 trades since changes to the Lucky Trade system were announced. We can now confidently reveal that each year a Pokémon ages, it increases its chances of becoming Lucky!

Findings

The Silph Research Group proposes the following as the current base probabilities of receiving a Lucky Pokémon in a trade outside of special events:

The Major Factor: A Pokémons Age

Because Niantic hinted that a Pokémons age would impact its likelihood of becoming Lucky when traded, this was the Silph Research Groups primary research focus.

• Less than One Year Old
• More than One Year Old
• More than Two Years Old
• Pokémon caught between July and August 2016

Get Lucky Pokemon Only By Trading

The only method of getting a Lucky Pokemon is to trade with a friend. Even then, it’s a rare chance and you have to be extremely lucky for the trade to occur. Lucky Pokemon cannot be found or caught in the wild.

Getting Lucky Mythical Pokemon Is Not Possible

Trading the mythical Pokemon such as Mew, Celebi, or Meltan will not result in a Lucky Pokemon, no matter how many times you attempt it.

Read Also: How To Get The Pokeflute In Pokemon Fire Red

Getting The Most Of This Update For Pokemon Go

Even though you can only get one Lucky Pokemon from a specific friend per day, theres no known limit on how many people this applies to. Technically the only max number of daily Lucky Friends we can identify is 200. That number is solely based on the fact that the most friends you can have at one time is 200.

Even if youre not going to be getting 200 lucky Pokemon in one day there are still plenty of ways to make the most of this update:

• Save up on top-tier Pokemon Candies
• Trade top-tier Pokemon
• Save up on rare candies

You still need to have the same amount of candies for evolving and leveling up, so save those. However, being able to get the most powerful creatures with the guarantee of having the lucky status is a game changer.

It has the chance of quickly increasing the number of high IV Pokemon that people have on their teams. At the same time itll decrease the need for exorbitant amounts of stardust to power up high-tier monsters.

Thats all there is to Lucky Friends in Pokemon GO. If you want to learn anything else about Pokemon Go check out our Wiki.