Pokemon TCG Pocket trading system could be fixed with one simple trick

Pokemon TCG Pocket’s new trading feature has proven incredibly controversial amongst the game’s community, with many calling it a “greedy money grab” that doesn’t put players first. However, there’s one simple fix that could instantly make trading a lot more fair and it’s already in the game. 

TCG Pocket’s trading feature currently requires players to use Trade Tokens, which can only be acquired by burning duplicate cards. In most cases, if you wish to trade for an ex card, then you’ll need to trash cards of the four to five cards of the same rarity. 

There’s also a stamina requirement on top of this, which only serves to rub even more salt into players’ wounds. While Trade Stamina replenishes over time, the idea of throwing away your prized cards for just one isn’t exactly intuitive. 

This is especially true when the best TCG Pocket meta decks require dupes of the most powerful cards. As you can imagine, this makes filling out binders with any missing ‘mons even harder. 

Pokemon Pocket trading has one simple fix

The Pokemon Company

Before Pokemon Pocket released the trading feature alongside the new Space-Time Smackdown, players had hoped they’d finally be able to use Shinedust. Unfortunately, collectors who hoarded this currency quickly found that they had wasted their time. 

Instead, you’ll need Trade Stamina and Trade Tokens to swap cards with your friends. It’s certainly a missed opportunity, particularly when Shinedust is now worthless. 

This is especially true now that you need to keep duplicate cards for trading, which makes getting Flair (shiny cards) rather pointless. Essentially, TCG Pocket now has a dead currency that many players agree, could have been used for trading.

“I have 30k+ Shinedust built up that I assumed would become the trading currency, just like in Pokemon Go with Stardust. But somehow with trading added it’s actually become even more useless,” wrote one player on the TCG Pocket Reddit page. 

Since the trading feature went live on January 29, there’s been a huge backlash across social media, with memes, Reddit threads, and Tweets calling out the devs over the “greedy” requirements needed for trading. It remains uncertain whether any changes will be made, but for many, Shinedust is the perfect fix.