Good news, everyone – the Pokémon TCG Pocket team realized that the newly added trading token feature was pretty lame, so they addressed it and promised to make it a better system.
Trading is a core part of all the best Pokémon games, be it the physical TCG, Pokémon Go trading, or simply swapping ‘Mons to evolve them in the mainline titles. But Pokémon TCG Pocket’s trading upended this by making it so players need trade tokens in order to swap cards. While you can fill this with hourglasses or gold, it still adds an annoying limit on what you can actually do. Needless to say, players were not pleased.
A few weeks ago, the Pokémon Company released a statement addressing the trading restrictions, claiming that the system’s purpose is to weed out bots and “other prohibited actions.” However, legit players found it very hard to earn trading tokens. The company went on to mention that in the future, “multiple ways to obtain tokens through event(s)” would appear in the game.
Now, the Pokémon Company promises to completely remove trade tokens and the need to exchange cards in order to earn trade currency. Now, to trade three- and four-diamond, or one-star rarity cards, you only need shinedust. You can get this by opening packs and gaining copies of cards you already have.
As you spend shinedust to obtain flair in the game, the amount of dust you receive is changing in the future to account for the extra uses. You can also swap any trade tokens you do have for shinedust.
A future update where you can share which cards you want to trade or trade for is also in the works, and coming in a future update. This will be super handy as that friend who happens to have an extra Charmeleon burning a hole in their pocket will finally know you need one, or you can offload that ugly Meditite to someone who actually wants it. You can see the full announcement here with more details.
Will this new way of trading bring you back to the game? If so, check out our favorite Pokémon TCG Pocket cards, and the best Pokémon TCG Pocket decks here for some inspiration.