Pokemon Go lucky friends announced – details revealed

A datamine has revealed a new lucky friends feature is within the code of Pokemon Go. It guarantees a lucky Pokemon when trading.

Update: Niantic have announced and confirmed details for the new lucky friends feature.

Pokemon Go Update 0.139.2 1.107.2

Update: The latest Pokemon Go update on both iOS and Android have confirmed that the datamine regarding the new lucky friends feature was correct. The lucky friends feature had previously been speculated but has now been confirmed in the Pokemon Go patches notes. Specifically it says: “Trainers who are Best Friends will have a chance of becoming Lucky Friends.”

Niantic have now more revealed more details about the mechanics of lucky friends. Firstly, you need to 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 the following:

• 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 are fortunate enough to become lucky friends, then much like when you reach a new friendship level, you will receive a notification telling you. This means your next trade is guaranteed to result in lucky Pokemon for the both of you. Following this trade you will revert back to best friends but can become lucky friends again in subsequent days.

The Pokemon Go update for the lucky friends feature is live now…

This means that when you become best friends with a fellow trainer, you could become lucky friends. The best way to become best friends is by sending each other a gift once a day for 90 days.

Lucky friends

The concept of lucky Pokemon has been a part of Pokemon Go since July 2018. Chrales, a renowned Pokemon Go dataminer, has now revealed the concept of lucky friends also.

The datamine reveals on-screen text confirming you have become lucky friends. Another message was found stating, “Your next trade with this friend will be Lucky!” Additionally, the text, “Your next trade together will be Lucky! This means both Pokémon traded will become Lucky Pokémon,” was also found.

At this stage there have been no official communications with Niantic about this new feature. Consequently, we only have this datamine to go from.

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What we do know however, is there will now be the ability to have someone as a lucky friend which will guarantee a lucky Pokemon when trading.

Whether you can force being a lucky friend with someone remains to be seen. It also isn’t clear how frequently a trade with that lucky friend will result in lucky Pokemon.

Trading Pokemon, especially older ones, is the best way to get lucky Pokemon…

Lucky Pokemon

Lucky Pokemon in Pokemon Go have two benefits. Firstly, the stardust needed to power up that Pokemon costs half as much. Secondly, a lucky Pokemon will have minimum IVs of 12/12/12.

The first part is a huge benefit because stardust is a scarce resource in Pokemon Go and powering up a Pokemon, at least to its full potential, is rather costly. To power up a Pokemon from level 1 to its maximum level cost 270,000 stardust.

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The minimum IVs of 12 in each the attack, defense and stamina categories are also useful. This means a lucky Pokemon is guaranteed to have an IV of at least 80%.

Last updated 9th April, 2019