Releasing pokémon and Dust
The Box fills up fast. When you no longer want a pokémon, you can release it. Releasing removes the pokémon forever and pays Dust, the Box currency.
How to release
Open Team/Box and click Release in the Box bar.
You can mark pokémon one by one, or select by rule:
- IV up to X%: only picks low-IV ones.
- Level up to X: only picks low-level ones.
- Keep the N best of each species: the best stay out, the rest goes in.
The selection respects the search and rarity filters on screen. Before confirming, the game shows how many will go and the most valuable ones in the selection. Large selections ask you to type the confirmation word.
To release a single pokémon, open its details and use the Release button.
Who never enters mass release
- Shiny and Divine: they only go one at a time, with an extra confirmation.
- Favorites: mark the star in a pokémon's details to highlight it in the Box. A favorite is never released, not even individually — but it can still be sold, traded or fused.
- Locked: see below.
- Founder companion: cannot be released.
- Pokémon in your Arena defense team.
- Pokémon listed on the market or in a trade are already out of the Box, so they do not show up.
Items held by a released pokémon go back to your depot. You lose nothing besides the pokémon itself.
🔒 Locking a pokémon
The star protects from release, but not from the market, trading or the Lab. If you want to make sure a pokémon never leaves your account by mistake, use the lock.
Open the pokémon's details and click the lock icon. A locked pokémon:
- Cannot be released.
- Cannot be listed on the market.
- Cannot enter a trade with another player.
- Cannot be fused in the Lab.
Locking and unlocking are instant, with no confirmation — you can change your mind at any time. To lock or unlock several at once, use the Lock… button in the Box bar: it has the same by-criteria picker as release (IV, level, the best of each species), just reversed — it looks for your best, not your worst.
A locked pokémon still joins your Team, evolves and holds items normally. The lock only stops it from leaving your account.
How much each release pays
Two things set the value: rarity and level.
Rarity gives the base value, at level 1:
| Rarity | Dust |
|---|---|
| Common | 1 |
| Uncommon | 3 |
| Rare | 10 |
| Epic | 30 |
| Prismatic | 100 |
| Mythic | 300 |
| Astral | 1000 |
| Divine | 3000 |
Level adds on top: each level above 1 pays 1% more. A level 50 pays half again as much, a level 100 pays double, and level 500 pays six times.
| Level | Worth |
|---|---|
| 1 | the table value |
| 50 | 1.5 times |
| 100 | 2 times |
| 250 | 3.5 times |
| 500 | 6 times |
So a Rare at level 1 pays 10, and the same Rare at level 100 pays 20. The final value is rounded, so a Common only goes from 1 to 2 at level 51.
The level bonus is small on purpose. Levelling a pokémon just to release it never pays for the hunting time: rarity is what really decides the value. The bonus is there so that releasing a pokémon you invested in is not the same as releasing one you just caught.
Shiny pays no Dust at any level. It is worth more alive, on the market or on your team. The Founder companion pays nothing either.
Other ways to get Dust
Releasing is still the main source, but it is not the only one.
Chests. About 6 chests in every 100 come with Dust inside. The better the chest, the bigger the handful:
| Chest | Dust |
|---|---|
| Common | 15 |
| Rare | 38 |
| Epic | 80 |
| Legendary | 180 |
Market. Dust is an item in your bag, so it is bought and sold between players like any other. Players with a full Box sell; players who want to evolve right now buy. The price is whatever players make of it.
The Shop vendor does not buy Dust. If you want to turn Dust into gold, the market is the way.
What Dust is for
It pays for four things: evolving a pokémon, breeding at the Incubator, fusing at the Lab and Mega Evolution (both forging the stone and awakening).
In almost all of them the price rises with rarity: a better pokémon costs more to make even better. The exception is forging the Mega Stone, which has a single flat price.
Evolving
Evolving is priced by the stage of the form you are creating, times the rarity of the pokémon doing the evolving:
| Rarity | Second form | Third form |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 100 | 400 |
| Uncommon | 150 | 600 |
| Rare | 200 | 800 |
| Epic | 350 | 1,400 |
| Prismatic | 500 | 1,800 |
| Mythic | 700 | 2,600 |
| Astral | 1,000 | 3,800 |
| Divine | 1,500 | 5,500 |
What counts is the rarity of the pokémon evolving, not of the new form: evolving never changes anyone's rarity.
Where an evolution already required a stone, the stone is still required. Dust is charged on top of it, not instead of it.
Catching a pokémon that is already evolved still costs nothing. Only the trainer who evolves pays.
Breeding at the Incubator
Making an egg charges gold and Dust by the average rarity of the pair, the same average that decides the offspring's rarity. An Astral paired with a Common lands in the middle of the table.
| Pair | Gold | Dust |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 2,500 | 50 |
| Uncommon | 5,000 | 150 |
| Rare | 10,000 | 400 |
| Epic | 20,000 | 1,000 |
| Prismatic | 40,000 | 2,500 |
| Mythic | 80,000 | 6,000 |
| Astral | 150,000 | 15,000 |
| Divine | 300,000 | 35,000 |
A Common pair costs the same gold it always did. The Essence of Life is still required, one per egg.
The screen shows the price of the pair you picked before you make the egg. Swap a parent and the number changes right away.
Fusing at the Lab
Fusing 9 identical pokémon charges Dust by the rarity going in, on top of the usual Fusion Core and gold:
| Rarity going in | Dust |
|---|---|
| Common | 25 |
| Uncommon | 80 |
| Rare | 300 |
| Epic | 1,000 |
| Prismatic | 3,600 |
| Mythic | 12,000 |
| Astral | 40,000 |
Fusing 9 commons costs 25, while releasing those same 9 would pay 9. Fusing and releasing are real choices at every rarity, and neither one is free.
Astral fusion is the only way to get a Divine, and it moves up a rarity on 1 in 5 attempts. Counting the attempts that fail, a Divine costs close to 200,000 Dust and 45 Astrals. It is the most expensive thing in the game, by design.
Mega Evolution
Mega charges at two moments, and the numbers are in Evolution:
- forging the Mega Stone: 10,000, the same for every stone;
- awakening: 3,500 at Common up to 40,000 at Divine, by the pokémon's rarity.
Two, because the Mega Stone is tradeable: if the whole price sat on the forge, whoever buys a stone from another trainer would awaken for free.
Fusing items (TMs and seals) does not cost Dust. Only pokémon fusion does.