Who have tried this already?
Looks like old trades count as limit already even with the increase…
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Thanks for passing along that great tip!
I just tried it, trading one from 2017 for one that the other trainer caught a month ago, and it went lucky! 93 IV on one side and 96 on the other. Almost like being Lucky Friend with anybody who wants to trade, if one of you has an old mon!
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My collection is at the stage now where anything but 100% on normal Pokémon or 98% 14-15atk or 96% 15atk on Legendary ends up in the Candy grinder.
Sadly all the old Legendary that have fallen into this increase range have ended up in disappointment and gone to the Candy Grinder. No surprise tbh as Trading Legendary has be a massive disappointment for my Trainer full stop.
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Yeah, after awhile poop candy tastes more like poop than like candy… 
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I have noticed with that “announcement” that if the 2018 mons is from the other player I am trading with, bigger chance to get lucky, almost guaranteed for the 25 trades or so…
But if the 2018 pokemon is from me to be traded to other players latest pokemons, it is mostly a guaranteed failure…
Did you see that in the announcement? Or in actually trading? I’m not sure I’m understanding correctly.
Ok so how this works is this:
(Btw this is all from a go hub article but I can’t put links in posts so you’d have to go find it yourself)
Part of the article states:
“Every account has a hidden counter of the number of guaranteed lucky trades they participated in.
Note, this is NOT the number of lucky trades you have had in total. Lucky friend trades and random lucky trades do not affect the counter.
If you trade a Pokémon caught before 31st December 2018, the trade will go lucky if your ‘hidden counter’ of guaranteed lucky trades is less than 25. Both Trainers in the trade will then have their counter increase by 1.”
I have also done some testing with my family, and the four 2018 Pokémon that we traded all came over as lucky. If you have already done this type of guaranteed lucky trade with 2016 or 2017 Pokémon, that will count towards your total counter, however, the counter was just increased from 15 to 25, so you will have at least 10 left even if you had previously already maxed your counter. Best of luck trading!
Thanks for the details. The point I was trying to ascertain from @HLAJR regards the matter of the trade going lucky less often when he initiated the trade than when the other player initiated it.
Your answer introduces another question, though. If one side has exceeded 25 but the other side has only done 1, will the trade be most affected by the one who exceeded or by the one who still has many more to do? (i.e. will the trade still be guaranteed lucky if it’s my first one, even if the other has done more than 25 already?)
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I should hopefully be able to test that. I think my main has used it 25 now but can’t be absolutely certain.
Ok great questions @vorgriff3. In reply to the first one, the way this works is only one player in the trade has to have a Pokémon from 2018 or earlier. If I have a Psyduck that I caught yesterday, and my friend has a Charmander from 2018, both will be guaranteed to be lucky if we trade. However, this will still increase the guaranteed lucky trade counter (that goes up to 25) for both players by one.
In reply to your second question, if you have hit your guaranteed lucky trade cap of 25, but the person you are trading with has not, they must be the one who trades away the 2018 (or earlier) Pokémon.
So let’s go back to my Psyduck for Charmander trade scenario. If I have hit my guaranteed lucky trade cap but my friend with the Charmander (which is the Pokémon from 2018, remember) has not, the trade will still be guaranteed to be lucky, because the player who is trading away the 2018 Pokémon still has at least one of his 25 guaranteed lucky trades left.
However, if my friend has hit his trade cap, then even if I have not, the trade will not be guaranteed to be lucky, because he’s the one with the Pokémon from 2018, not me. It will still have better-than-usual odds, because the older a Pokémon is, the higher chance it has of going lucky in a trade.
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Thanks for the insights! Is it also the case that a trade will either be Lucky for both or Lucky for neither? Never Lucky for just one side of the trade?
Correct, both Lucky or no both not Lucky.
They haven’t created the bug that one gets the Lucky while the other doesn’t …… yet 
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@NotanotherKangaskhan Lol don’t even say it next update we’ll get it now 
Backing up what Kangaskhan says, it’s both or neither.
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Thanks for the clarification.
This looks like my situation since I believe I have fully maxed out my 25 guaranteed lucky trade counts.
So if I trade 2018-2016 pokemons to another player and they are not trading same old pokemons, great chance are that the trade wont be lucky for us.
Yes if you’ve maxed out your counter and are trading for recently(-ish) caught Pokémon then the odds are not too high for it too go lucky. However, the odds are still higher than trading two recently(-ish) caught Pokémon.
I will say that Niantic just increased the max of the guaranteed lucky trade counter from 15 to 25 when they published that article and included 2018 Pokémon in the guaranteed lucky trade pool, so unless you’ve done 10 guaranteed lucky trades since then, I would think you would have some left?
Also now that I’ve leveled up on the website I can send links so I can share the GO Hub article I learned this from:
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I am afraid I’d already used that up, those 10 additional Guaranteed Lucky Trades since I was trying to fill my Kanto Luckies Pokedex 
So I will be left with just the random luckies from now on… Good thing that old Pokemons will still increase the chance though it won’t be guaranteed anymore so it will be a challenge to set one up, unless I could find new friends with 2016-2018 pokemons and that they have not yet used up their 25 guaranteed slot.
And hope their old pokemons include those Legendaries that I still don’t have…
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It is from my own trading experience…
I was just referring to the “announcement” that at first I erroneously think that “ALL” 2018 pokemons are Guaranteed Lucky Trades as long as one of the player has not yet fully used his/her 25 slots.
The reason that I said, that when it is me who is trading the 2018 pokemons, it fails but when the other guy is the one giving the 2018 pokemons, as far as I remember, it becomes a lucky trade for the two of us.
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Oh ok that makes sense. Well, I’m sorry you’re out of guaranteed lucky trades, but it sounds like it was for a good cause!
I wonder to what time period that 25 trade limit applies. Is it 25 per-month? Per-year? For ever?
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It’s until they raise that number of 25 to another number.