Pokémon TCG Pocket: How to Trade and All Limitations
Trading is finally coming to Pokémon TCG Pocket, allowing players to swap cards from their collection with each other. This comes with some strict limitations out the gate, however, as the developers work to ensure the feature is in the top percentage of features.
According to the official TCG Pocket social media accounts, when trading does go live later this month there will be a number of rules each player must follow to participate. These rules and limitations will change as the developers take player feedback and explore ways to expand the feature, but for now, here is how trading will work in Pokémon TCG Pocket.
How Does Trading Work in Pokémon TCG Pocket?
We don’t have a release date yet, but the ability to trade cards will be added to Pokémon TCG Pocket before the end of January. This will let players swap cards from their collection with another player as long as they meet specific requirements.
The TCG Pocket devs are keeping the trading feature on a tight leash at the start to prevent any major issues from popping up. Here are the highlights for how trading will function, and its listed limitations.
- Trades can only be done between players that are friends in-game.
- Trades can only be done with cards that are of the same rarity.
- When Trades launch, only a select number of cards from the Genetic Apex and Mythical Island sets can be traded. More cards and booster packs will be added to this list in the future.
- Cards with a ♢ rarity between ♢ 1 and ♢ 4 or ☆1 can be traded.
- Items must be consumed in order to trade.
Based on this information, the developers don’t want players dumping their rarest cards or potentially being scammed out of them in deals that involve both low and high-rarity Pokémon. The current limitations will still allow players to trade plenty of cards from existing sets to help build out their collections, including Pokémon ex, though it will keep them from trading things like Immersive Rares.
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“We’ll continue to monitor player feedback and asses future updates to the trade feature while keeping in mind how to balance both the ease and enjoyability of collecting,” the TPC Pocket devs said. “Thank you, everyone, for your immediate thoughts on this topic! Your concerns are seen. Once this feature becomes available, I'd like to invite everyone to try it and provide feedback. This way, the game can continue to evolve in an enjoyable way for everyone.”
The developers also mention that items must be consumed to trade, which likely means a new currency will be added to the game that is tied directly to trading. If it is anything like the game’s current Hourglasses and Stamina, you can use Poké Gold or purchase these items in the shop to bypass whatever timer is placed on trading—more details on that will be shared when it launches.
Along with the trading details, the developers have also confirmed that the next set of booster packs will also launch in January. That means it will be a major set like Genetic Apex, featuring multiple different packs and hundreds of new cards rather than a smaller pack like Mythical Island.
Players have raised one concern with these limitations: it is almost impossible to complete sets via trading, meaning you still need to open packs and hope to pull some of the rarer cards yourself—or open hundreds of packs to earn enough Pack Points to craft them. Even if that only really applies to higher rarity cards and not building decks.
“It's pretty clear they want trading in the game so that everyone can play and keep up with the current meta, even f2p players,” Reddit user Shrabster33 said. “And if you want the fancy cards you need to pay or get lucky. I don't see anything wrong with this. Immersives, golds, and 2 stars are all basically just cosmetic upgrades.”
As for the content expansions, these same rules will likely apply to any new sets and packs added to Pokémon TCG Pocket in the future until otherwise stated.
