The trading feature in Pokemon TCG Pocket was announced as part of the initial reveal for the game, but at time of writing the ability to trade cards with friends and other players has not been added, with only a notification that the feature is "coming soon". While the Pokemon Company and developers have been pretty restrained and not given away many details about the ability to trade Pokemon in-game, there are still a few scant details that we'll lay out below.
Everything revealed about trading in Pokemon TCG Pocket so far
Right now the ability to trade in Pokemon TCG Pocket does not have an official release date or even window.
Neither the publisher or developer have commented on the eventual release of the trading feature: right now it is an option in the social menu of the Pokemon TCG Pocket app, but it's greyed out and reads "coming soon".
Of course, we have seen trading in Pokemon TCGP done as part of the initial announcement trailer. Here we see users trading cards with other players both person-to-person and seemingly long-distance, though the trailer is thin on details about exactly how this is done, showing only selective excerpts of the process. Still, it does appear to be straightforward in terms of goals - each player choosing a card to exchange with the other.
It is also likely that Pokemon Go (which has been hugely successful) may act as a template for some of the trading systems. Pokemon Go's trading had numerous limitations and barriers attached, including the following:
- Players had to be friends in-game.
- Players had to spend in-game currency in each trade.
- Players had to be within a certain distance of each other.
- Rare Pokemon had additional limitations, with "Special Trades" only possible once per day. It's very possible that all the Pokemon TCG Pocket rare cards will be harder to trade.
Trading in Pokemon Go was not even added until June 2018, nearly two years after the release of the game itself. Trading not being an immediate feature is fairly normal for mobile Pokemon games.
The reason for trading being delayed has not been stated, but we can make some educated guesses. I myself wrote in the wake of TCGP's announcement that it was a revolutionary feature in the industry, owing to the potential compromise to the in-game economy and need for microtransactions. It's also possible that the developers are waiting for further cards to expand the available pool, so there's a broad variety of options in the Pokemon TCG Pocket best decks meta, or that they're collecting data on player behaviour first.
Regardless, we'll update this page the moment we hear more details or anything about a release date. In the meantime, why not read up on some details we do know, like if the bent packs in Pokemon TCG Pocket actually have rare cards in them?
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