Lucky trade guide
Lucky is the rarest and best trade outcome. The mon gets an 80 %+ IV floor, halved power-up cost forever, and the gold ✦ tag. Whether you roll Lucky depends on a few factors — most of which are public mechanics that you can plan around.
Both mons end up with at least 12/12/12 IVs (80 % minimum). Many become 100 % hundos.
Stardust to power up is halved permanently. A L40 → L50 climb costs 750 250 dust instead of 1 020 500.
Lucky tag persists on the mon forever; it shows on the catch screen, party screen, and battle UI.
Both trainers can do unlimited trades. There’s a daily 100 standard / 1 special trade limit, not a Lucky cap.
A mon’s age (when it was first caught) is the dominant factor for Lucky odds. Older = higher chance, with a hard guarantee for catches from before mid-2016. The exact curve isn’t public, but community-collected data points trace this shape:
| Caught when | Age | Lucky chance | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-launch (caught before 2016-07-13) | all | 100 % | Hard-baked guaranteed Lucky. The publisher tags these mons as the founding-era set. |
| Caught before mid-Aug 2017 | ~8.5+ years old | ~85 % | Old enough to hit the soft cap. |
| Caught 2 years ago | 730+ days | ~25 % | The age multiplier kicks in heavily after 2 years. Save your dustiest box mons for trades. |
| Caught 1 year ago | 365+ days | ~10 % | Modest boost over the base rate. |
| Caught recently | < 6 months | ~5 % | Roughly base rate. No age advantage. |
Numbers are community-empirical (Silph Road datasets ~30 000 trades). Treat as planning estimates, not exact rates.
Lucky is a per-trade roll, not per-mon. If the trade rolls Lucky, both traded mons become Lucky. You can’t Lucky just one side — the game checks the trade as a single unit.
Even with the 12 / 12 / 12 floor, a Lucky has a ~3 % chance to roll out perfect (4×4×4 = 64 combos minus the floor cuts ≈ 1/32). That’s the only way to get a 100 % from a Lucky trade.
At Best Friends or higher, opening a gift or trading rolls Lucky Friends (~1 / 100). The next trade with that friend is guaranteed Lucky regardless of mon age. Save your highest-IV mons for these. Friends page →
Lucky doesn’t reduce trade dust. The dust cost is the same as any normal trade for that category — see /stardust →. Best Friends + Lucky special trade ≈ 40 000 dust each.
- Save your oldest box mons for trades. Every old hundo or near-hundo you trade has a higher roll-Lucky chance and rewards the friend who receives it.
- Time Lucky Friends — when the gold trade animation lights up, immediately do your most valuable trade with that friend. The state persists until you trade.
- Trade dustless at Best Friends. With the 96 % discount, even a 1 000 000-dust special trade drops to 40 000 — affordable on a single battle-league session of stardust.
- Hundo from Lucky is rare: ~3 % per Lucky trade. Don’t expect it; treat the IV floor as the main reward and the hundo as a bonus.