How to get Lucky Pokemon in Pokemon Go

James Busby

Lucky Pokemon provide the best way for trainers to level up and get the strongest creatures in the game, so find out how you can get them in Pokemon Go.

Leveling up your favorite Pokemon in Pokemon Go can take a lot of time and effort, but Lucky Pokemon help to cut this grind down. Whether you’re looking to obliterate your opponents in Gym Battles or just wanting to get your hands on the game’s strongest Pokemon, you’ll want to try and obtain Lucky versions of each creature.

As a result, you’ll want to try adding as many Lucky Pokemon to your team as possible. Of course, this can be a little tricky to do if you don’t know where to start.  Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can get access to these Lucky monsters in Pokemon Go. 

Contents

What are Lucky Pokemon?

Lucky Pokemon trade
Lucky Pokemon are much easier to level up.

Unlike Go’s shiny Pokemon, Lucky Pokemon don’t have any distinguishing looks. In fact, they look exactly the same as normal Pokemon. However, they do have one vital difference that makes them incredibly useful. 

Lucky Pokemon have minimum IVs of 12/12/12 and costs half as much Stardust to power up. This makes them extremely useful for any Pokemon trainers looking to level up their Pokemon without having to use vast amounts of Stardust. 

After all, Stardust can be hard to come by, so if you’re a competitive player who wants to get Pokemon to the maximum level of 40, obtaining Lucky Pokemon is essential.

How to get Lucky Pokemon?

Pokemon Go Lucky Pokemon
Trading Pokemon is one of the best ways to get Lucky versions.

Trading Pokemon

Trading Pokemon is currently the best way to get Lucky versions of a specific creature. All Pokemon trades have a chance of resulting in both Pokemon being lucky, but trading older Pokemon has a greater chance of making them Lucky.

How easy this is to achieve will vary from trainer to trainer. However, those who have played since Pokemon Go’s release (July 2016) will have a greater chance of obtaining a Lucky Pokemon. This is because it’s highly likely that there are a greater number of older Pokemon available. 

The exact percentages of obtaining a Lucky Pokemon are still is unknown, so you’re best off trading Pokemon that you have held onto for a number of years. It has been speculated that when two Pokemon are traded, the game will take the average age of both creatures and give trainers a percentage based on that.

To guarantee a Lucky Pokemon trade, it’s often best to make sure the traded Pokemon were caught between July 2016 or August 2016. One trainer will also need to have acquired less than 10 Lucky Pokemon to make the outcome guaranteed.

Lucky Friends

Lucky Friends Pokemon Go

In April 2019, Niantic introduced the Pokemon Go Lucky Friends feature. Firstly, you need to add each other as Best Friends to have a chance of becoming Lucky friends. The chance of becoming Lucky friends will only happen once per day when you do any of the following actions:

  • Trade Pokemon
  • Open a gift from each other
  • Team up in a Raid Battle or Gym Battle
  • Challenge each other in a Trainer Battle

If you end up becoming Lucky Friends, you will receive a notification telling you of your new status. This will also mean that your next Pokemon trade is guaranteed to yield Lucky Pokemon. The chances of this happening are quite low, but it could help you on your hunt for super-strong pocket monsters. 

Lucky Pokemon are guaranteed to have IVs of 12/12/12, so you’ll want to try and get your hands on as many as possible using the above methods. 

Related Topics

About The Author

James is Dexerto's Associate Games Editor who joined the website in 2020. He graduated from university with a degree in Journalism, before spending four years freelancing for GamesRadar+, PCGamesN, RPS, LoL Esports, Red Bull Gaming, and many more. You can find him covering everything from CoD, Apex Legends, Genshin Impact, and Monster Hunter. Need to get in touch? Email James at james.busby@dexerto.com.