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.
Lucky-trade math, decoded
A Lucky trade gives the receiver mons a 12 / 12 / 12 IV floor and halves the stardust cost. Both effects are huge — when you have a Lucky-pool slot available, the question is never whether to use it but which trade to use it on. This page runs the EV math against your current pool.
Why Lucky floors matter
The 12 floor collapses the search space from 4,096 IV combos to 64. Hundo chance jumps from ~0.03 % to 1.56 %. The expected total IV % rises from ~67 % to ~88 %. That difference compounds across decades of collection — a Lucky 14 / 14 / 14 is the new floor for most serious traders.
Dust efficiency
For special trades (Legendary, Mythical, Shiny, regional, purified, etc.) the dust cost can hit 1,000,000 at Good friendship. Lucky halving + best-friend discount stacks to ~20,000. If you have a Master Ball moment — a never-traded rare species — Lucky is the only economically sane way.
Aging mons for guaranteed Lucky
Catches from 3+ years ago Lucky on trade automatically. Open your collection, filter by oldest, and queue trades with old friends — every one comes back Lucky. Stack with friendship levels for max efficiency.
Related
Run any post-trade result through the IV calculator to see exactly which combo you got. Compare with the trade evaluator for non-Lucky friendship-floor math. For dust-only planning, see stardust costs.
FAQ
What's the IV floor on a Lucky trade?
Lucky trades guarantee a 12 / 12 / 12 IV floor regardless of friendship level. That means the receiver mons cannot have any stat below 12, narrowing the search space from 16³ = 4,096 combos to 4³ = 64. The hundo chance jumps from ~0.03 % to 1.56 % — 50× higher than a normal best-friend trade.
How is the dust discount calculated for Lucky special trades?
A Lucky pair pays half the normal stardust at every friendship level. For a special trade (Legendary, Shiny, regional, etc.) at Best Friend that means 20,000 instead of 40,000. For ultra-rare combinations (Mythical, never-traded-before species) the discount stacks against the eye-watering 1,000,000-dust base.
When does a Best Friend trade beat an Ultra Friend Lucky?
Almost never — Lucky always wins on the floor. The Lucky 12-floor produces an average IV of ~85 % (vs ~50 % for Ultra Friend 3-floor). If you have a Lucky shift available, use it on the highest-base-stardust trade in your queue. The dust savings alone often cover a month of normal pulls.
How do I increase my Lucky-trade odds?
Two levers. First, mons aged 3+ years auto-Lucky on trade — drop and pick up old catches to qualify. Second, the global Lucky rate is bumped during the Tour event and select events. Stack high-value trades for those windows. The current Lucky boost (if any) shows on the live /events page.
Should I trade a hundo if it might Lucky?
Only if you want the Lucky badge. A trade resets the receiver's IVs — even Lucky keeps them random within the 12-floor (1.56 % hundo). So you have a 98 %+ chance of trading a hundo for a non-hundo. The math says no unless the badge is the goal.