Pokemon Sun: Jangmo-o Trading Empire
This long holiday weekend consisted of me clocking in a bunch of hours into Pokemon Sun. However, with the exception of one trial, I actually haven’t progressed that much further into the story. I’m still in the middle of island #2, where the Pokemon breeding ranch and GTS trading has captured my interest.
It started with a pair of Mudbrays that I captured on the farm. I started breeding them and sending the offspring to Wonder Trade, where I’ve gotten all sorts of craziness, including a (probably duped) Cosmog and Solgaleo.
Of course, mostly I got a lot of Route 1 Pokemon I didn’t need. But I kept trading those off, and every now and then, I’d get something I didn’t already have in my Pokedex (which was all I was trying to do).
Then something happened that changed everything. Someone Wonder Traded me a Jangmo-o. At first, I was just happy to get a neat looking little dragon Pokemon I didn’t already have. But then, I went and did some research online and discovered this was a Pokemon that was probably in demand.
Wonderful World of GTS
So I started breeding it with the intention of sending them off into Wonder Trade (silly me). That’s when I decided to investigate this other kind of trading called GTS.
I never touched GTS in Pokemon X. I always (mistakenly) thought it was a direct one-to-one trading over the Internet. Like interacting with real people. That made me nervous as a Pokenoob, so I stayed away from it. When I discovered that wasn’t how it worked, and that it was a more automated system, I tossed a Jangmo-o up for trade, hoping to get a Ditto for breeding purposes.
I was surprised when a few minuets later, the trade had gone through.
“Hmm… I wonder if I could get a Litten?”
Almost instant trade.
“Wow… this little guy is popular!”
And so it began. Breeding and trading for all the Moon Exclusives. Trading for all the Island Scan special Pokemon (still working on this).
I offloaded my probably-duped Solgaleo for a probably-duped Lunala… because why not?
I started researching Pokemon that were considered rare or a pain to capture and traded for those.
I started breeding Honedge, Mareanie, Horsea, Corsola and Drampa. I sent out trades and searched for trades to make. Along with the Jangmo-o, I was building a little trade empire while these Pokemon are still new and in demand.
Then I started to turn my sights on filling out my Pokedex some. Any evolution I didn’t plan on personally leveling for, I started to trade for instead. While there’s still a lot of Pokemon I want to catch on my own (including Sun exclusives), there’s just some that I’m not too interested in leveling or working on evolving.
The Eeveelutions are some of them. I don’t think I’ve ever evolved an Eevee in any of the games I’ve ever played. So, I thought it would be nice to have a full set this time around. And that’s what I got through trades last night.
For some reason, Glaceon was the hardest to get. But in the end, someone succumbed to the Jangmo-o trade I put up.
Despite all this trading, I’m still only at about 30-something percent done with the Alola Pokedex. There are some that I want to train up and evolve on my own for sentimental reasons… like this Raichu that I trained from the Pichu I caught on Route 1.
I’ll never play this competitively, but I sure do enjoy breeding for the sake of trading. This is a completely new way of playing for me since I never did any of this in Pokemon X…
But that’s okay. I’m having fun with what I have now.